Evaluate Site

Available with Business Analyst license.

Use Evaluate Site to quickly assess a new site using the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of an area around the prospective site.

Business Analysis workflow

The interactive workflow guides you through the process of locating a site, creating a buffer around the site, and performing analysis using data enrichment, infographics, and reports. Evaluate Site can be used with a local or online dataset. To set your Business Analyst data source, go to Environments > Business Analyst > Data Source and select your data source. On the Analysis tab, in the Tools group, click Business Analysis and click Evaluate Site Entry to access the workflow.

Identify a location

The first step in the Evaluate Site workflow is to identify the location for analysis. You can accomplish this in the following ways:

  • Search for your site.
    • Use the Location pane to enter an address or x,y coordinates in the Search text box and select one candidate from the list of possible matches. You can configure your geocoding locators from the Filters menu.
    • Use the Layer Search tab to select a feature from a layer in the map or search on specific fields. You can refine the search and match options from the Filters menu.

    Example site searches could be the actual coordinates for downtown Los Angeles, a POI search for a theme park, or a street address, such as 380 New York Street, Redlands, CA.

    Learn more about using Location and Layer Search.

  • Click the map.
    • Use the Point on the Map option to select a location on the map. The x,y coordinates for the candidate location will be displayed.
    • Right-click a result and click Show Details to view the geocoding or attribute results.

Create a buffer

You have the option to use rings or service areas as your site buffer.

Once you select a site buffer type, the Dissolve Options parameter must be set to either Rings or Disks.

  • Rings—The polygons representing larger breaks exclude the polygons of smaller breaks. This creates polygons between consecutive breaks. Use this option to find the area from one break to another. For instance, if you create 5- and 10-minute service areas, the 10-minute service area polygon will exclude the area under the 5-minute service area polygon. This is the default.
  • Disks—Polygons are created from the facility to the break. For instance, if you create 5- and 10-minute service areas, the 10-minute service area polygon will include the area under the 5-minute service area polygon.

You can choose to go on to the next step and perform a site analysis, or you can click Finish and save the site and buffer.

Perform analysis

There are three options available for your site analysis:

  • Infographics—Click View Infographic to activate the Infographics tool.
    Tip:

    You must be signed in to ArcGIS Online or your portal to use the Infographics option.

  • Reports—Click Create Reports to generate a report. You can choose from a list of Esri summary reports. If you are signed in to ArcGIS Online or your portal, your organization’s shared reports are available.
  • Variables—Click Enrich to append variables to the buffered area. If you are signed in to ArcGIS Online or your portal, your organization’s shared reports are available.

Review summary

Review the steps. If you need to make a change, click Previous to get back to the correct workflow step. Click Finish when done.

The workflow is complete with reports and infographic windows, and enriched layers, trade areas, and drive-time trade areas in the map.

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