Custom .bds and Threshold Trade Area Issues

Question

Hello Everyone,
I am having trouble with running a Threshold Trade Area analysis utilizing custom .bds files in Business Analyst 10. I am creating the .bds files by inputting my custom block group data from a shapefile. I am not having trouble actually creating the .bds files as the files do include all of our custom block group data in the Attribute Table, but when I try to utilize those files to run a Threshold Trade Area Analysis using Threshold Drive Times the program either freezes and goes �??Not Responding�?? or I receive the error 080256 (everything works when running the analysis using Standard Threshold Rings). My first question is if there are currently any issues/bugs with the utilization of custom .bds files when running analyses? Also could this issue be a license agreement problem between BA and ArcGIS? Business Analyst is updated to SP3 and ArcGIS is updated to SP4. Is there a certain Service Patch which ArcGIS needs to be set too for Business Analyst to work properly?

Another issue I am having is that my custom .bds files which I have previously created in BA9.3.1 running on Windows XP are not visible in ArcCatalog when viewing in BA10 running on Windows 7. Would the difference in operating system have anything to do with the visibility of the .bds files? I ask this because prior to updating to BA 10 we were running BA9.3.1 on Windows 7 and the .bds files created then are visible.

Thanks,
Phillip

Jason_RobinsonRobinson · Answer

Hi Kristen,

They main issue with which we would like to focus on is that for us the Threshold Trade Area analysis does not work (Error messages) when when clicking on the Threshold Drive Times method and utilizing custom .bds files in Business Analyst 10. We have had this issue in the past and contacted the ESRI Support Services (Esri Incident #1020049). The technician (Matthew P) determined that this issue was a bug and that Threshold trade areas by drive time do not work in Business Analyst 10.
Here is his response: 
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
So I have tested with all BA service packs and different inputs and outputs and have determined this to be a bug.  Threshold trade areas by drive time do not work in Business Analyst 10.  I have marked the severity as high and submitted the request to the developers. [#NIM079258  Business Analyst threshold trade area using Threshold Drive time fails everytime.  "Failed to build the rings..." ]
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What we would like to know is if this bug has been fixed with a solution to the issue? Or is this issue still being investigated?

Thank you for you help,
Phillip

Phillip,

I personally checked on the status on NIM079258 yesterday and I can confirm that it is open and assigned to development.  As far as a time frame for resolution it is hard to say.  There may or may not be a BA10.1 SP1 before BA10.1 2012 data update is released (but would naturally have software updates as well akin to a service pack) so this bug would have a good chance to be fixed in either instance.

Regards,
Jason R.

PhillipSchmutz · Answer

Hi Kristen,

They main issue with which we would like to focus on is that for us the Threshold Trade Area analysis does not work (Error messages) when when clicking on the Threshold Drive Times method and utilizing custom .bds files in Business Analyst 10. We have had this issue in the past and contacted the ESRI Support Services (Esri Incident #1020049). The technician (Matthew P) determined that this issue was a bug and that Threshold trade areas by drive time do not work in Business Analyst 10.
Here is his response: 
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
So I have tested with all BA service packs and different inputs and outputs and have determined this to be a bug.  Threshold trade areas by drive time do not work in Business Analyst 10.  I have marked the severity as high and submitted the request to the developers. [#NIM079258  Business Analyst threshold trade area using Threshold Drive time fails everytime.  "Failed to build the rings..." ]
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What we would like to know is if this bug has been fixed with a solution to the issue? Or is this issue still being investigated?

Thank you for you help,
Phillip

PhillipSchmutz · Answer

Hi Kristen,

Thanks for your response to this issue. Unfortunately everything you suggested has not cleared up the problem. First of all I'm not really sure how to tell if I am adding variables that I'm not licensed for. The list you referenced has over 5000 variable associated with it. Also the variable that I'm using are variable that I have used before in creating .bds files which have worked without any issues or problems. I am creating the files the same way now that I have in the past using the same variables. In regards to the number of variables the only thing in the .bds files are a Block-group ID (associate the file to a Geographic base), a Baseline Pop Data (taken from the standard .bds files), and our own created Population Scenario.  So there are only 3 total variables. Considering you can run Threshold Models when using there standard .bds data which covers the entire US and has probably over 50 variables to choose from, I don't see how my 3 variables would be too many. 
Here is a screenshot of our .bds file. 
[ATTACH=CONFIG]17676[/ATTACH]

One thing that really confuses me with the Threshold Trade Area Analysis is that when using our custom .bds files the analysis works (runs successfully with no error) when using the Standard Threshold Rings analysis methods yet does not work (give an error) when using the Threshold Drive Times analysis method. This makes me think that there is not an issue with our custom .bds files rather there is an issue when using custom .bds files while using the Drive Time method.

Thank you,
Phillip Schmutz

Custom .bds File.jpg