Business and Facilities Search in ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App

Organizations often identify and analyze the locations of competitive or complementary businesses or other points of interest as they consider future expansions or resource allocation. Point of interest data include key locations of interest such as shopping centers, restaurants, museums, grocery stores, or other locations. ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App is designed for non-GIS and GIS analysts alike and provides point of interest data by SafeGraph and Data Axle (formerly known as Infogroup). The Business and Facilities Search tool within Business Analyst Web App provides an easy way to access, filter, and save this data as a map and a table.

This blog focuses on how to employ point of interest data from Data Axle and SafeGraph in Business Analyst Web App and uses shopping center data as an example. In the first part of the blog, I will share a quick way to find shopping centers. In the second part, I will dive deeper into each of the granular search and filtering capabilities and their benefits.

Part 1: Simplify Location Mapping with Business and Facilities Search

In this section, we’ll cover the simplest way to search for points of interest locations such as shopping centers using Business and Facilities Search in ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App.

1. In Business Analyst Web App, go to Maps > Create Maps > Business and Facilities Search.
2. On the side panel, Click Categories, expand Shopping < Shopping Centers and Malls (or any other category you need) from the dropdown.
3. In the following screen, click “View full table” on the bottom to view the results table. (Click “Minimize table” to minimize.) Click
4. You can optionally change the map styles, or click Next.
5. Choose to Save Layer, or click I’m Done.

Part 2: Advanced Features in Business and Facilities Search

In this section, we’ll dive into the details and benefits of advanced search options, map styling, filtering capabilities, and saving results and layers in Business and Facilities Search.

As mentioned in Part 1, to launch Business and Facilities Search, simply click on Create Maps from the secondary navigation on top of the screen and select Business and Facilities Search.

Benefit 1. Search with Ease

One of the key benefits of using point of interest data via Business and Facilities Search is that it is searchable by business name, category, NAICS or SIC codes. Within the first panel of the Business and Facilities Search workflow, click on More options to expose these search capabilities:

1. Search by business name. If you are looking for specific business names (i.e., Westfield Mall), you can search by that name here.
2. Search by category. If you are looking for all businesses within a business category, choose from a pre-selected list (i.e., for shopping centers and malls.)
3. Search by NAICS or SIC code. If you have specific NAICS codes you need to search by, enter those here. (i.e., for shopping centers, NAICS CODE 531120 or SIC CODE 6512)
4. Set search extent. You can limit your search to the map extent or other custom boundaries you have pre-defined on the map.
5. Select data source. The current tool supports points of interest data from either SafeGraph or Data Axle (Infogroup).

Benefit 2. Filter For Accurate Results

Another benefit of Business and Facilities Search is the ability to narrow down your search results by various location attributes. For instance, in searching for shopping centers and malls, I can filter the list of results by the following:

1. Keywords within search results
2. Site boundary
3. Business name
4. City, state, ZIP code
5. Employee count range (if using Data Axle (Infogroup) data source)
6. Sales volume range (if using Data Axle (Infogroup) data source)
7. Brand name (if using SafeGraph data source)

Benefit 3. Adjust Map Styles to Communicate Your Findings

There are seven different map styling options available for location symbols, with additional customizations within each style:

1. Location (Single symbol): shows icon for each or clusters of locations.
2. Types (Unique symbols): allows different colors, shape, and size by specific attribute labels. For example, if you are using NAICS codes for shopping centers and other retail businesses, I can show different symbology by each NAICS code.
3. Heat map: shows concentrations of specific locations. For example, you want to show concentration of shopping centers and malls instead of specific locations, this is a good style to choose.
4. The following styles are only available for Data Axle (Infogroup) data source:
   1. Counts and amounts (color): Varies color gradient by the quantity of attributes selected. For example, you can use sales volume in shopping centers and malls where the darker colors denote larger sales volume.
   2. Counts and amounts (size): Varies the size of the icon by attribute quantity.
   3. Color and size: Varies the size and color of location icon by specific attributes quantity.
   4. Types and size: Varies the size and color of location icon by attribute label.

The default style “Location (Single symbol)” allows you to optionally cluster points and change the symbol, import custom symbols, and color or size changes.

Each of the six other style options offers additional customizations including changing 1) color, size and shape of the location icon and 2) color and size changes by attributes as shown below in image below.

The different map styles provide a wide range of flexibility in communicating your spatial analysis. The image below shows different styles of the same shopping center and malls data.

Benefit 4. See Detailed Results

You can also see the details of your search results by clicking on View full table. The expanded table below includes shopping centers and malls data with business name, address, city, state, zip code, NAICS and SIC Code, number of employees and sales volume.

Once you are satisfied with the search results, you can export the results table, save and share the map layer with your organization. The saved layer can be used as complementary or competitive layers as part of your suitability analysis within the web app.

Additional Resources on Business and Facilities Search

For detailed step-by-step instructions, you can refer to the following additional resources on Business and Facilities Search:

1. Guided tours: Click on your username on top right of your Web App screen and select Guided tours from the dropdown menu. Under the Guided tours panel, you can select Level 3, second tour called “Search for businesses and facilities”.
2. Help Documentation (link)
3. Tutorial video (link)

I hope you found this blog helpful in learning how points of interest information can be employed through the Web App’s Business and Facilities Search tool. Please do not hesitate to reach out with comments or questions to businessanalyst@esri.com.

Other General Resources

For general information regarding ArcGIS Business Analyst, please use the following links:

• Business Analyst product overview page
• Review pricing and purchase Business Analyst
• Business Analyst resources page
• LinkedIn user group
• Business Analyst YouTube playlist
• GeoNet community
• Business Analyst Web App login page
• Read the reviews of Business Analyst on G2
• Email the team: businessanalyst@esri.com

Header image created in ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App with Nova Map basemap and Business and Facilities Search with Types and Size style. 

About the authors

Helen Brown

Helen Brown is a Senior Product Manager for ArcGIS Business Analyst. She thrives on prioritizing problems and delivering market-level value through scalable, intuitive products.

Jordan Cullen

Jordan Cullen is the group lead for the ArcGIS Apps Product Marketing team at Esri and the Senior Product Marketing Manager for ArcGIS Business Analyst. Alongside an extensive background in software marketing and multichannel communications, Jordan has a passion for analyzing consumer behavior and market trends, creating strategic content and captivating concepts, and helping the best customers in the world along their unique product journeys.

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