Inside the API - An Introduction

The Community Analyst API for Flex enables you to build dynamic rich Internet applications on top of the Community Analyst REST web service and is developed on top of the ArcGIS API for Flex. It allows users to create interactive and expressive Web applications leveraging ArcGIS Server resources�such as maps, locators, and geoprocessing models,�Community Analyst tasks�such as analyses, reports, and lookup utilities,�and Flex components�such as grids, trees, and charts.

The main concept of the Community Analyst API is a task. To execute a task, begin by preparing task parameters. Next, asynchronously execute the task passing the parameters to the Community Analyst REST web service with the help of an instance of the appropriate Community Analyst task class. Finally, you receive results from execution of this task as an instance of the corresponding Community Analyst data type.

Community Analyst API for Flex tasks are categorized in groups reflected in the package structure:

• com.esri.bao.tasks.authentication presents the authentication task and the Community Analyst token provider.
• com.esri.bao.tasks.geofence provides the special Geofence Info task.
• com.esri.bao.tasks.reports contains tasks generating variety of reports for user-specified areas and geometry.
• com.esri.bao.tasks.stdgeographies provides utility tasks that retrieve information from standard geography data layers deployed with Community Analyst web service.
• com.esri.bao.tasks.thematicmapping and com.esri.bacore.thematicmapping contain the ThematicMappingLayer class and auxiliary classes.
• com.esri.bao.tasks.tradeareas contains tasks generating trade areas around business points such as stores, businesses, hospitals, schools, etc.
• com.esri.bao.tasks.utilities provides lookup utility tasks that retrieve auxiliary information from Community Analyst web service.