Is ArcGIS Pro ready for serious analyst use?

[GaryMullaney]

It's faster.  It's prettier.  It allows you to easily step over into 3D views of stuff.  I'm very tempted.  But:

1.  I have to relearn a thousand instinctive habits (although age 62.5, I think I can manage this - it will help keep me young).

2.  Can't share mxd's with colleagues still on ArcMAP (don't do that very often anyway).

3.  Fear and trembling that a bug with no easy work-around will stop me in my tracks (Pro 1.0 and 1.1 were like this).

Can't afford to spend a week learning, only to find out the beast is not ready for prime time.  What say other analysts who may have run Pro 1.2 around the track a few times?

[TylerSchwartz2]

I like ArcGIS Pro but it is lacking in core functionality that is available in ArcMap. Im not sure why they have not ported over the same level of functionality into Pro...

One example I have found: right clicking an attribute table column and viewing statistics for mean, std dev, sum, etc.  Cant be done in Pro (you need to export statistics to a table/excel, and if you want to look at multiple statistics, say mean and std dev, you have to create a separate export for each).  This alone has kept me from moving fully to Pro.

Additionally there are still alot of bugs and crashes in Pro, mainly related to multi-threading. The software still feels like it is in beta.  It feels unstable (but what ESRI product isnt?)

The pros (no pun intended) however, are significant.  I can easily style things in Pro and upload to the AGO cloud, which I have found to be very useful for my workflow.  Other enhancements such as anti-aliasing, and generally I find the new UI to be much easier to work with. Every day I am discovering new things in Pro that I am finding useful.

I use Business Analyst for most of my work and am patiently waiting for this to be implemented in Pro.  Once this is done and the multi-threading/crashing issues are solved, I can see myself making the full migration over to Pro.  I wish I could do it today!

[JoshuaBixby]

Tyler Schwartz​, please see my latest comment over at Re: How do I get statistics for a field?​.  Running multiple statistics on multiple fields can be accomplished by running the Summary tool once instead of numerous times.

[Anonymous User]

I can see how pro and lots of other tools now available can be used to change the answer to "what is analysis?"  I complained that pro didn't do dot density and proportional symbols, but I learned to compensate for that with extrusion, which is actually pretty cool I think, it's even a better visualization method in some cases, helping the analysis. 

[ClintonJenkins]

The short answer is no, it is not ready. We are now at version 1.4.1, and every time I try to do a project or a map with ArcGIS Pro, I end up going back to ArcMap. Certain functions I can do in Pro, and some work better, such as analyzing big data. However, I always run into basic problems of missing functionality. For instance, I have access to a really nice hillshade layer through ArcMap, but I can find no way to get access to it in ArcGIS Pro. Simply, Pro is in many ways still a beta product, not yet ready to replace ArcMap. Maybe by whatever version appears in 2018 it will be a serious contender.

[Prashant_MukeshMangtani]

Clinton,

I am sorry to hear you are having trouble with basic functionality. I am trying to figure out what you mean by access to a really nice hillshade layer in ArcMap. Were you using the "Use hillshade effect" checkbox on the Layer Property page->Symbology tab? If so ArcGIS Pro can give you similar (probably nicer) results using Raster Functions. Try the hillshade function.

[ClintonJenkins]

Hi Prashant,

The hillshade I was trying to use I found in ArcGIS online. I don't have it at the moment because I'm on a different computer without the map. It was just one of many possible examples, however. The main issue is that the primary development line of ArcMap for many years has a vast array of tools and datasets ready to go, and a nearly unfathomable number of users and combination of tools. Transitioning that to ArcGIS Pro must be a huge endeavor, and I suspect it will never be 100%. In many ways it is like when ArcMap drops support for older programming languages, e.g., Visual Basic, and then a bunch of things that some people used every day will no longer work. If there is no ready replacement for that functionality, the user can't easily transition to the new platform.

I don't think it is anything ESRI is doing wrong, it is just difficult. Occasionally I cannot even use ArcGIS 10.5 because of such issues. I recently had to use a tool that was only compatible with ArcMap10.1, which meant finding an old computer on which to install it. There simply wasn't a ready-made tool that was compatible with newer versions of ArcMap, much less for ArcGIS Pro.

Clinton

[ClintonJenkins]

I've been using ArcGIS Pro version 2 for a few days now and it seems much improved over 1.4. The interface responds more quickly and is more functional. Some basic tools seem to still be missing. For instance, it seems crazy to me that I cannot delete a column in a table unless I go open a specific tool.

Another difficulty (bug?) is that the catalog does not seem to always refresh with new results. For example, I have a model that runs and generates a series of tables in a geodatabase. When I go to that geodatabase after the model runs, it appears empty. I must manually choose to refresh the folder/geodatabase before I can use the model output for anything. That is fairly annoying and I imagine could create many problems down the line.

Anyway, a step in the right direction.

C

[MichaelVolz]

I thought the ESRI instructor that I had said the refresh bug was fixed in 2.0.  But as I guess from your use, this bug still exists.

[AdewaleBolaji1]

Good afternoon All,

Please how can i describe local and regional pattern of temperature interpolation prediction. and what procedure most appropriate

[DanPatterson_Retired]

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