B U S I N E S S   A N A L Y S T   S E R V E R   10.2   R E P O S I T O R Y

Esri Business Analyst Server Repository

Business Analyst Server uses a Repository as its storage structure. The Repository supports persistent storage of analyses and reports, and stores data in a hierarchical structure:

• At the top level of the Repository are workspaces. At least one workspace, namely "Default Workspace", is contained in the Repository.

• A workspace is used to group projects. At least one project, namely "Default Project", is contained in a workspace.

• A project forms the next level of hierarchy and contains folders.

• A folder can contain a number of items such as analyses, store layers, customer layers, trade areas, reports, etc.

• An item makes up the lowest level of the Repository.

Two types of repository are supported:

• The file-based repository. Repository items are mapped to folders and files of an underlying file system.

• The ArcSDE-based repository. Repository items are accessed through the ArcGIS Spatial Database Engine.

The figure below shows the Repository structure.

Every project contains 15 folders to store the folder items. Three of them—Models Calibrations, Modeling Results, and Project Subsets—are not used in the current version of Business Analyst Server.

The Repository contains items of the following types:

• A layer item provides access to a Business Analyst feature layer. This layer can be retrieved with the Open Feature Layer endpoint. A layer can be uploaded with the Upload Shapefile or Upload Feature Set endpoint.

• A report item provides access to a Business Analyst report.

• A profile item provides access to a Business Analyst segmentation profile. This profile can be retrieved with the Open Segmentation Profile endpoint.

• A target group item provides access to a Business Analyst segmentation target group. This target group can be retrieved with the Open Segmentation Target Group endpoint.

• Custom Data folder contains table items uploaded by a user with the UploadTable endpoint using SOAP.

Repository items are usually created as an output from a Business Analyst Server task. To create an item in the repository, you should specify an output parameters task esriFolderItem type parameter providing information on the workspace, project, folder type, and folder item name. To create a report item, you should also specify the GetReport value in the output types of the task.

If a folder item already exists, it will be overwritten in the case of the file-based repository. For the ArcSDE-based repository, an attempt to overwrite an existing item leads to error.

You don't need to retrieve an item from the Repository in order to use it in the input parameters of Business Analyst Server tasks. Simply specify the esriFolderItem value for the Item parameter of the DataLayer, PointLayer, ProfileData, TableData, or TargetGroupData type instance.