Is ArcGIS Pro ready for serious analyst use?

Discussion created by gary.mullaney@jws.com on Mar 16, 2016
Latest reply on Jul 19, 2017 by mvolz47

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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?

Outcomes

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MidnightYell2003 Mar 16, 2016 6:44 AM
The limitations of ArcGIS Pro 1.1 kept me away from considering it seriously. I haven't bothered with 1.2 (though, I likely should). I like the list you made as I feel the same way in most cases.

When I have a little bit of time, maybe next week, I'll put on 1.2 and give it a whirl again. Hopefully it won't scare me off! Though, like all software types, it's adapt-or-die... So we will all have to learn at some point!
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Dan_Patterson Mar 16, 2016 7:26 AM
As with any new software, this is my workflow...
- I use the version that gets the job done first .... for example... ArcView vs ArcMap quite some time ago
- when the job is done, replicate the workflow in the new, document the new
- when there is an easy job, try the new..
  if faster, use it the next time around...
  if slower, revert and practice
Gradually the new will be used in most cases except for those cases where the old is faster, can't be replicated or you just feel old-school (I am 62 )
That is one reason some of us "?"timers keep a machine with ArcView 3.x running or the old Arc*

More recently, I have found myself reverting back to plain old programming since it has been a mainstay since 1968. The new languages/packages and associated modules allow you to do much of what any GIS software package can at new C-ish speed. Examples would include Numpy, SciPy MatPlotlib R, Matlab and new languages like Julia or optimizers for existing ones like Numba

I find the evolution within the GUI environment is a "nice" in that it allows more people to do what we couldn't do 20 years ago. But most people never go beyond, querying and summarizing data and mapping it. Then the evolution to ArcGIS PRO is going to really improve the 3D capabilities. But!!! does everyone need it? Mapping bird nesting sites on a provincial level... does it need to be in 3D? you will see the maps coming though.

But... the caveat is ... what do you call analysis? If it is querying data to find stuff, that may or may not be analysis... and we will all have our own hotly defended positions.
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charliedfinley Apr 22, 2016 9:53 AM
After the upgrade to ArcGIS Pro 1.2, the most promising improvement I found was that the program is now fairly stable. That alone made it worth my time to start doing projects in Pro. Don't get me wrong - it is an ESRI product, so crashes are inevitable!
My main annoyance is the lack of simple tasks that we take for granted in ArcMap, thus I usually have an ArcMap window open at the same time, with the same datasets added to it, for quick editing. Edit in ArcMap, save, then remove the layer in Pro, undo that action, and the updated layer reappears in Pro.
That said - as the above commenter mentioned - what is serious analysis? My job is heavy on cartography, light on true spatial analysis. I've found that the Project Pane, with the ability to copy and paste maps and layouts, as well as the Map Series function, makes it very convenient for creating map books/ sets. Cartographic enhancements like multi-layer masking and anti-aliasing makes for pretty map products, and the 'Bright Map Notes' is one of my favorite features - allowing the addition of graphics as an actual feature class. No more dummy draw tools and graphics that cause you to pull your hair out.
Give it a shot!
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- agray1 @ charliedfinley on May 25, 2016 8:18 AM
  I found removing caching on layers that are frequently edited outside Pro resolved the loading/reloading problem to see the changes.
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  - jeremy_wright-esristaff @ agray1 on May 27, 2016 11:07 AM
    Alexander,
    
    Some datasets let us detect modification dates, which lets us invalidate the cache. Some datasets don't. Can you let us know which dataset type (e.g. shp, file geodatabase, etc.) you were using when you experiencing the problem with caching?
    
    Regards,
    Jeremy W.
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    - agray1 @ jeremy_wright-esristaff on May 27, 2016 11:31 AM
      I was using an unversioned oracle feature class with a TNS connection. It is really dynamic and the shapes are simple rectangle polygons and the fc is querydef'ed so dynamic is appropriate I think.
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      - jeremy_wright-esristaff @ agray1 on May 27, 2016 12:59 PM
        Thanks Alexander. I've forwarded this information to the team responsible.
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kyleg@ksdot.org May 17, 2016 2:04 PM
No. In my very limited use for analysis, which I will define as representing data in different cartographically informative ways to communicate status, I have found that in Pro version 1.2.0, I still can NOT do these things:

layer symbology:
     proportional sized symbols
     chart symbols
     dot density symbols
Layout items:
     limit legend items to those shown in the extent
     working with dynamic legend items is a big weakness, doesn't seem to be much control outside of converting legend to graphics

That being said, there are some analysis tasks that can be done in Pro that are better than in ArcGIS desktop, such as the 3D extrusion feature. 3D extrusion based on attributes is eye candy stuff which I'm not a huge fan of, but I guess it is sort of cool. It appears all the geoprocessing and python analytics are there, and I'm curious to learn more about the "Infographics" features, which I have not configured yet.
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bvansick_sjr May 24, 2016 1:00 PM
I've found ArcGIS Pro 1.2 pretty useful for the following things:
1) Staging data up to ArcGIS Online
2) Editing data (much slicker than in ArcGIS, especially when editing multiple datasets like levees, canals, pumps and properties), although I take it topology rules are not yet supported.
3) Learning ArcGIS Pro!

Plus, there are some pretty cool workflows with online data that have not been developed as effectively in good ol' trusty ArcGIS. For some examples, I would recommend viewing this webinar from ArcGIS: Strike It Rich with Imagery Webinar Recording
Ultimately, moving to ArcGIS Pro 1.2 means change, and change means pain, but it's worth taking time to learn a little more about the new stuff coming our way before we're out of other options.
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tyschwartz May 25, 2016 6:49 AM
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!
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- bixb0012 @ tyschwartz on May 25, 2016 7:18 AM
  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.
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kyleg@ksdot.org May 27, 2016 5:44 AM
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.
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rontavius Apr 19, 2017 12:14 PM
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.
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- pmangtani-esristaff @ rontavius on Apr 19, 2017 2:39 PM
  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.
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  - rontavius @ pmangtani-esristaff on Apr 30, 2017 9:54 AM
    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
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rontavius Jul 18, 2017 10:25 AM
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
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- mvolz47 @ rontavius on Jul 19, 2017 10:42 AM
  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.
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bolajiadewale Jul 19, 2017 9:43 AM
Good afternoon All,

Please how can i describe local and regional pattern of temperature interpolation prediction. and what procedure most appropriate
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- Dan_Patterson @ bolajiadewale on Jul 19, 2017 10:00 AM
  Was this supposed to be a new question? or is it somehow related to the existing thread?
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  - bolajiadewale @ Dan_Patterson on Jul 19, 2017 10:30 AM
    Good evening, please gatecrashing, is a new question...
    Thanks
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