3.2 Orientation to Esri Business Analyst Online (BAO)

Location intelligence starts with a geospatial question, develops into a model or analysis workflow; and relies on pertinent, accurate, and timely geospatial information. The above reading is the introduction to a scenario from Miller's text which you can use to orient yourself to Esri's Business Analyst Online.

In this lesson, we provide a brief overview of Esri's Business Analyst Online (BAO). BAO includes Esri's most current business, demographic, and lifestyle data:

• Business Data: Refreshed data for the United States and Canada from Dun and Bradstreet.
• Esri's 2025/2030 US Updated Demographics: Accurate, current-year estimates and five-year projections capture changes to the US population such as growth and decline; increased diversity; aging; and changes to household types, home values, employment, and income.
• 2020/2024 US American Community Survey (ACS): Updated survey data from the Census Bureau. Variables include households with/without a disabled person and households using food stamps.
• Esri's 2025 Tapestry Segmentation: Tapestry reflects changes in the US population such as increased diversity, changing households, aging, and nontraditional families (2020 US Census geography)

You will be receiving an email from the instructor with directions to access the Penn State licensed Esri Business Analyst Online, using your PSU username and password. The email provides access to the BAO system and class group work, so please be sure to check your Penn State email. Once logged into the site, you will notice that additional help documentation is available as well as instructional videos on the website.

Let's begin with a quick overview of BAO:

• Log into Esri's BAO.
• Select the "Maps" tab.
• Choose "Define Areas for Reports."
• Select "Geography," search for your geography, enter  ("Minneapolis, MN"), Go.
• Select the radio button for "Metropolitan Areas (CBSAs)," check Minneapolis-St. Paul, Click "Next."
• You should now have a polygon on the map around Minneapolis MN (see Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1: Polygon around Minneapolis MN.

Credit: Esri's Business Analyst Online

You can practice and improve your business analysis of a geographical area using Esri's BAO.

• Edit the site colors to better distinguish certain attributes by selecting on "Colors" inside the pop-up box (Figure 3.2).   Choose "No Fill" for the fill option.

Figure 3.2: Color Editing a Polygon.

Credit: Esri's Business Analyst Online

Upcoming assignments will involve creating choropleth maps and using Esri's Tapestry data on BAO.  Familiarize yourself with those two topics by utilizing Esri's documentation and instructional videos to help you better understand how to display the information.

There are many techniques for statistically segmenting populations and geographies, each based on the collected or calculated data, scientific methodology, standards, and purpose of the segmentation. Esri builds their Tapestry market segmentation system from demographic and socioeconomic variables; identifying and labeling unique consumer markets throughout the U.S. (Esri Demographics, 2022). The Tapestry includes 67 market segments which are then summarized in 14 LifeMode and 6 Urbanization groups. Esri describes these where "LifeMode groups share similar demographic characteristics and consumer behavior patterns while Urbanization groups are based on the segment's geographic and physical features".

Tapestry Segmentation from the Esri website, Esri Demographics:

There are open resources for learning Esri's Business Analyst Online: