In the June 2025 release of ArcGIS Online, any ArcGIS Online user with a Creator user type or above will have access to ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App Standard now included among the apps that come with their license.
What is Business Analyst Web App?
Business Analyst Web App is a web-based application that applies GIS technology to extensive demographic, consumer spending, and business data to deliver on-demand analysis and presentation-ready infographics, reports, and maps. With Business Analyst Web App, you can understand and compare communities to make better, more informed, data-driven decisions. By using the thousands of variables available in Business Analyst Web App, you can analyze specific locations, geographic areas, or custom regions you create on the map, then relay critical information and analyses to others using maps, infographics, and reports.
What’s the difference between Business Analyst Web App Standard and Advanced?
There are two types of Business Analyst Web App licenses: Standard and Advanced. The Standard license allows you to view maps, apps, information products, and infographics that you can share with other users. The Advanced license additionally allows you to perform advanced analysis, create custom reports and infographic templates, use your own custom data, and share to ArcGIS Storymaps and ArcGIS Dashboards.
There are some differences in the capabilities available based on license type, detailed in the table below and in the Licenses section of the help documentation.
| Feature | Business Analyst Web App Standard | Business Analyst Web App Advanced |
| Define areas workflow: Find location, Select geography, and Draw Polygon | x | x |
| Create maps workflows: Color-coded maps, Smart map search, Points of interest search | x | x |
| Business Analyst Assistant: In-app AI productivity tool that guides users through workflows, assists with in-app interactive guided tours, and answers frequently asked tech support and product documentation questions | x | x |
| Ready-to-use infographics and report templates | x | x |
| Benchmark comparison reports | x | x |
| Custom data set up for addresses and geographical areas | x | x |
| Share results: PDF, Image, ArcGIS web map | x | x |
| Business Analyst Mobile App | x | x |
| A variety of online global data including business, demographic, and Points of Interest (POI) data | x | x |
| Suitability analysis: Identify the best location by ranking and scoring numerous sites that meet your specific criteria | x | |
| Void analysis: Detect voids and gaps in specific business and services, compared to another area | x | |
| Threshold areas: Create rings or drive times around a site that contain a specified amount of a variable | x | |
| Infographic and report creation and customization | x | |
| Custom data set up for customer, community, and other industry–specific data | x | |
| Hexagons for mapping and analysis | x | |
| Share results: ArcGIS Dashboards, ArcGIS StoryMaps | x |
How can I access Business Analyst Web App?
You can sign in to Business Analyst Web App using your ArcGIS Online credentials at the URL bao.arcgis.com.
Or, sign in to ArcGIS Online and click the App launcher. Select Business Analyst to run Business Analyst Web App.
Get started with Business Analyst Web App Standard
Business Analyst Web App Standard includes mapping, analysis, and infographics and reports.
Mapping
To get started with Business Analyst Web App using a Standard license, explore the different mapping workflows, including:
- Color-coded maps
- Smart map search
- Points of interest (POI) search)
Color-coded maps
Use color-coded maps to display one or two business and demographic data variables on the map using color-coding.
Smart map search
Use smart map search to select and map variables, including industry-specific variable lists, then set ranges for each variable.
Points of interest (POI) search
Use points of interest (POI) search to map businesses and facilities.
Analysis
With a Business Analyst Web App Standard license, you have access to the analysis workflow benchmark comparisons. There are additional analysis workflows available with an Advanced license: suitability analysis, void analysis, threshold analysis.
Benchmark comparisons
Run benchmark comparisons to compare sites using criteria and selected comparison methods.
Infographics and reports
With the Standard license, you can also view, run, and export infographics and reports.
Infographics are interactive, providing side-by-side geographic comparison and interactive maps and charts.
Reports are standard data tables with a curated selection of business and demographic variables to enrich your understanding of a site.
Learn about Business Analyst Web App Advanced
With the Advanced license, you have access to all of the capabilities available with a Standard license as well as additional analysis workflows, custom infographics and reports, adding and setting up your own custom data, hexagon mapping, and more.
Additional analysis workflows
Explore the analysis workflows, including suitability analysis, void analysis, and threshold areas.
Suitability analysis
Use suitability analysis to rank and score sites using criteria that you define. You can also change the weighting of the criteria and change the calculation methods. To learn more about suitability analysis calculations, see Suitability analysis reference.
Void analysis
Use void analysis to identify where there are gaps in businesses or services. To learn more about void analysis calculations, see Void analysis reference.
Threshold areas
Use threshold areas to create rings or drive times that contain a specified amount of a variable, such as 10,000 people.
Advanced mapping capabilities
When you’re mapping using certain workflows (color-coded maps, smart map search, benchmark comparisons, and suitability analysis), you can use hexagons to visualize data on the map. Hexagons are six-sided polygons that are used in GIS to apply a uniform grid on a map.
To learn more about using hexagons for advanced mapping analysis, see:
- An authoritative guide to hexagons in Business Analyst: The basics
- An authoritative guide to hexagons in Business Analyst: Data enrichment
- An authoritative guide to hexagons in Business Analyst: Mapping and analysis
Custom infographic design
With an Advanced license, you can also build your own infographics and reports. When you build your own infographics, you can modify an existing infographic or start from scratch.
If you’re interested in modern, presentation-ready data tables, try making your own tabular infographic. Tabular infographic styling is based on design and accessibility standards, with the added bonus of leveraging infographic capabilities.
Setting up your own custom data
You can also set up custom data to use in mapping, analysis, and infographics and reports. For instance, bring in your own customer data, or community and other industry-specific data, to use in combination with the business and demographic data available in Business Analyst Web App. Custom data includes connecting to a layer from outside the app and using the variables it contains or bringing in your own file.
FAQs
What is included in ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App Standard versus Business Analyst Web App Advanced? Are there any differences?
Below we have listed a brief description of both Business Analyst Web App products.
Business Analyst Web App Standard
This product license comes with tools for quick analysis, maps, reports, and infographics for site analysis alongside Esri’s expansive global data. This license enables users to find optimal sites that meet their criteria for success, access to 100+ out-of-the-box infographic templates and reports, and the ability to create study areas based on rings, driving, or walking distance or walking time.
Please note that this license does not have all the analytical workflows nor the ability to create custom reports and infographics.
Business Analyst Web App Advanced
This product license includes all the features in Business Analyst Web App Standard plus additional features, such as suitability analysis, void analysis, utilizing hexagons for mapping and analysis, the ability to add custom data, as well as the ability to create custom infographics and reports to meet business or community needs. This license enables users to dive deeper to see gaps or surplus of businesses, rank sites based on variables and customize existing infographic templates for the rest of the organization.
Please refer to the quick reference chart comparing the two license levels. Note this is not a full inventory of all product features, but rather a list of features which mostly differentiate the two products.
What data is available online and can I bring my own data into Business Analyst Web App Standard?
Currently the same online data is accessible through GeoEnrichment in Business Analyst Web App Standard and Business Analyst Web App Advanced. We have over 15,000 variables for over 177 countries. For more information on global demographic, spending, and lifestyle data, see Esri global data fact sheet.
In both license levels of Business Analyst Web App, you can set up custom data for addresses and geographical areas. Only in Business Analyst Web App Advanced will you be able to set up custom data for your customers, community, and other industry-specific data.
For more information, see Data in Business Analyst.
What are credits and why do I need them? Which workflows consume credits in Business Analyst Web App?
Credits are the currency used in ArcGIS. In Business Analyst Web App, credits are used for specific actions, such as exporting reports in PDF and Excel formats, exporting infographics in PDF and Dynamic HTML formats, and creating sites with defined drive times. Some actions do not use credits—for example, using Esri standard basemaps and imagery do not use credits. You can add credits from the Esri Store.
See Credits for full information about credit consumption in Business Analyst Web App.
What action do ArcGIS Administrators need to take if they have existing users already assigned to Business Analyst Web App Standard add-on license when the user type changes are in place? Will they have licenses assigned twice to Business Analyst Web App Standard?
For any user who has Creator, Professional, or Professional plus user types, upon login the administrator will see ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App Standard and Mobile toggled to “Included” without the ability to change.
If your users already have a Business Analyst Web App Standard license prior to it being included in Creator and above user types, they will have duplicate licenses assigned.
No action is needed on the day of the ArcGIS Online release, however; they will need to unassign the add-on duplicate licenses before expiration of the license on the license term end date. If they do not do this, the Admin will run into issues when deleting these people from their org if there are expired assigned licenses. Admins will need to call support for assistance.
Welcome to Business Analyst!
We are so excited for more users to have access to Business Analyst. Let us know what you’re most interested in using the feedback option at the bottom of this blog article or post on Esri Community.
For more information on Business Analyst Web App, see the following learning resources:
Article Discussion: