Most Business Analyst Server analyses need you to assign customers contained in the customer datasets either to stores or to trade areas. To create customer-derived trade areas around your customers or to create desire lines, your customer data must contain a field that associates each customer with a particular store. A number of analyses in Business Analyst Server require that your customer data has a store assignment field. If you do not have such a field, you can create one using the Assign Customers by Closest Store task.

Two algorithms for closest store assignment are implemented: direct assignment and assignment based on creation Thiessen polygons. The first algorithm compares the straight-line distance from a customer to every store and selects a store with minimal distance from the customer. The last algorithm first constructs Thiessen equal-competition polygons around stores and then assign all customers to stores based on what polygons they belong to.

The result of this task is a ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.BACore.TaskResultOutput object, which is compatible with ArcGIS Server's mapping APIs. FeatureSet and MapImage objects can be returned depending on the task output options requested. Additionally, the output analysis layer can be stored to the Business Analyst Server repository.

System.Object
   ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.BACore.Client.AbstractTask
      ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.BACore.Client.BATask<TResult,TEventArgs>
         ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.BAServer.Tasks.BAServerTask<TResult>
            ESRI.ArcGIS.Client.BAServer.Tasks.CustomerStoreSetup.AssignCustomersByClosestStoreTask

Target Platforms: Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003 family, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 family

Reference