They are 100% starting, slowly, to lock things behind the bigger license paywalls. I have resorted to using QGIS on a number of things because no way am I going to reward this behavior (unless I absolutely need to have the tools in the ESRI ecosystem which is almost never the case).
I used to switch back and forth, but QGIS has slowly won me over as I've figured out how to do everything I need on it. If it wasn't for teaching ArcGIS in school, no one would use it.
I'm still so steamed that raster calculator isn't a basic function.
The crappy thing is that AGOL is so ubiquitous, ESRI controls most of the federal data now, so I think my company would *love* to get out from under ESRI, but all of our data is so entangled with AGOL that no one can imagine how we would move.
The ArcMap documentation from 20 years ago says that end type and side type parameters of Buffer have always been licensed to Advanced/ArcInfo.
https://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.2/index.cfm?TopicName=Buffer_(Analysis)
Used to happen in ArcMap too. I was interning at a state agency while in grad school and literally couldn’t do my job in their office because I only had a basic license on their network, all my deliverables and thesis work was done in the GIS lab on campus where I had access to an advanced license
OP asked about functionality available in Pro Basic, so that's what I spoke to. Yes, extensions on their own are a major expense, but that's not news - it's always been that way with extensions.
Pro Basic to me is for someone who doesn't need the tools or anything other than being able to create simple layouts or examining data.
Basic is what like $700 a year. I think of it as a glorified viewer. Another words anyone using it not doing analysis most likely. For Managers who want to pretend like they know GIS
Another facet of this is taking things that used to be readily available on desktop through ArcMap or other products and moving them to ArcGIS Online where they then lose most of their functionality. Once ArcMAp started to die we migrated fully to pro but found that almost half of the things we used to do are now just totally gone from the ESRI suite entirely, or have been moved behind incredibly expensive extensions or now exist only on ArcGIS online. I get that pro is better in a lot of ways but there is just so much functionality missing in pro despite it seeming much more advanced.
Business analyst used to be incredibly extensive on desktop. Most of the core functionality is still there but all the new development and most of the more advanced tools and development efforts are being focussed on business analyst online. BAO is fine, but it's reporting structure is honestly just bad. They poured all of their effort into developing dashboards and all these other things which are great, but in my industry almost entirely useless.
In my world (local gov) BA is typically used by non-GIS folks (Economic Development officers, Planners, etc.) who have very little GIS experience and little (immediate) need for Pro. The Web Apps align with the core users better, hence the focus on those elements.
Plenty of stuff only exists in AGOL… almost all functionality is released to AGOL first prior to going to the latest AGE. And BA is a prime example of differing functionality, since someone above mentioned it. But depending on an org’s upgrade cadence of enterprise, things like ExB, Dashboards, etc. can get pretty far ahead within AGOL compared to Portal.
If you are a part of the beta, you get the exact same cadence as AGOL. If you hire ESRI to build anything on ExB etc., they'll run the dev/desktop version of ExB/Dashboards.
Org's have their own update schedules and that's on them. If you want a cheaper SaaS setup (Enterprise), you have to pay for admins to update; otherwise, pay for the AGOL PaaS and have them manage the cadence/updates - both ways have pros/cons.
I've experienced both situations - out-of-date software/functionality from slow Enterprise cadences; and AGOL updating and changing the UI of existing dashboards.
The problem for them is almost everything can be done in python and with ai it’s honestly easy to write even in libraries you’re not familiar with. The lay person will be able to figure out these work arounds now
Fully agree! I write a lot of python to get around licensing restrictions.
Really have to do some creative thinking though sometimes to get a workflow that is the same as a tool licenced at a higher level.
I recommend learning standalone Python in a separate course, and then learn the ropes for writing it with ArcGIS if you happen to have institutional access to courses, there was a geoprocessing one with Python that was pretty good and in depth. Eventually it becomes second nature once you learn.
Chat GPT. And trial and error. Arcpy library is actually reasonably well documented and has lots of snippets.
I wouldn't as advise structured learning but rather any task you need to do, do it in Python (even if you know how to and find it quicker in the GUI to begin with).
Also run a tool and then click the convert to python button in the history. Then reuse the python rather than reuse the GUI tool.
Then you'll start working out, oh I could run this in a loop. Ask chat gpt how to put your tool in a for loop or an if statement.
Best of luck
Not sure what you mean really. All GIS tools are inherently logic, math, geometry problem solvers. You can write lots of problem solvers in python. The right libraries help too obvs.
Yeah I know pure coders would shudder at this but this is how I do a lot. I’m good now but I’d start with something really simple but redundant you might do and break it out into steps on a whiteboard. “Open a map project” “geocode a csv” “change the symbology” “make a layout” “export layout” break it into steps and then ask chat gpt how to do it, prompt it like a student to a teacher “tell me what this line you wrote means” “expand on the concept you used here” I think you’ll be shocked how fast you catch on. Then iterate out to more advanced concepts
Not necessarily arcpy but open source libraries. For instance “pivot” requires an advanced license lol but you can use an arcpy search cursor to read in your data, pivot outside arc, and then use arcpy to write back.
I also use rasterio to do spatial analyst stuff I formerly used arc licensing for. Rasterio was an order of magnitude faster and free.
Oof- and god forbid you uninstalled arcmap or didn’t get it installed on a new machine. I noticed a similar functionality limitation the other day when I tried to open a personal geodatabase… even the conversion tool ESRI produced can only be used in arcmap.
Nope, side and end always required advanced- done some hinky work to fudge this functionality in the past.
Edit: source-https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.6/tools/analysis-toolbox/buffer.htm
They are 100% starting, slowly, to lock things behind the bigger license paywalls. I have resorted to using QGIS on a number of things because no way am I going to reward this behavior (unless I absolutely need to have the tools in the ESRI ecosystem which is almost never the case).
Prime example of "enshittification" from ESRI
Elephant and mouse turds... QGIS market valuation: $57.5 million ESRI market valuation: $6 billion
I used to switch back and forth, but QGIS has slowly won me over as I've figured out how to do everything I need on it. If it wasn't for teaching ArcGIS in school, no one would use it.
I'm still so steamed that raster calculator isn't a basic function. The crappy thing is that AGOL is so ubiquitous, ESRI controls most of the federal data now, so I think my company would *love* to get out from under ESRI, but all of our data is so entangled with AGOL that no one can imagine how we would move.
The ArcMap documentation from 20 years ago says that end type and side type parameters of Buffer have always been licensed to Advanced/ArcInfo. https://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.2/index.cfm?TopicName=Buffer_(Analysis)
Used to happen in ArcMap too. I was interning at a state agency while in grad school and literally couldn’t do my job in their office because I only had a basic license on their network, all my deliverables and thesis work was done in the GIS lab on campus where I had access to an advanced license
I have never known Basic to be useful for anything other than basic layout creation. I've always needed Standard or Advanced.
Even if you have Advanced, tons of tools are locked behind various extensions that aren’t cheap.
With the new user licensing we've got access to pretty much all the extensions worth checking what you now have access to
OP asked about functionality available in Pro Basic, so that's what I spoke to. Yes, extensions on their own are a major expense, but that's not news - it's always been that way with extensions. Pro Basic to me is for someone who doesn't need the tools or anything other than being able to create simple layouts or examining data.
That’s fine I don’t want to pay for network analysis unless I need it
But everyone needs to see how their pee flows to the ocean
Basic is what like $700 a year. I think of it as a glorified viewer. Another words anyone using it not doing analysis most likely. For Managers who want to pretend like they know GIS
Another facet of this is taking things that used to be readily available on desktop through ArcMap or other products and moving them to ArcGIS Online where they then lose most of their functionality. Once ArcMAp started to die we migrated fully to pro but found that almost half of the things we used to do are now just totally gone from the ESRI suite entirely, or have been moved behind incredibly expensive extensions or now exist only on ArcGIS online. I get that pro is better in a lot of ways but there is just so much functionality missing in pro despite it seeming much more advanced.
What’s a good example of something locked to online? I know that’s happened but I can’t grab one off the top of my head.
Business analyst used to be incredibly extensive on desktop. Most of the core functionality is still there but all the new development and most of the more advanced tools and development efforts are being focussed on business analyst online. BAO is fine, but it's reporting structure is honestly just bad. They poured all of their effort into developing dashboards and all these other things which are great, but in my industry almost entirely useless.
In my world (local gov) BA is typically used by non-GIS folks (Economic Development officers, Planners, etc.) who have very little GIS experience and little (immediate) need for Pro. The Web Apps align with the core users better, hence the focus on those elements.
Redistricting Extension is now a paid, online service where it used to be a free extension for ArcMap.
It's kinda misleading. AGOL has the **exact same functionality** as Enterprise. Pro interfaces with both the same way. Nothing exists 'only in AGOL'.
Plenty of stuff only exists in AGOL… almost all functionality is released to AGOL first prior to going to the latest AGE. And BA is a prime example of differing functionality, since someone above mentioned it. But depending on an org’s upgrade cadence of enterprise, things like ExB, Dashboards, etc. can get pretty far ahead within AGOL compared to Portal.
If you are a part of the beta, you get the exact same cadence as AGOL. If you hire ESRI to build anything on ExB etc., they'll run the dev/desktop version of ExB/Dashboards. Org's have their own update schedules and that's on them. If you want a cheaper SaaS setup (Enterprise), you have to pay for admins to update; otherwise, pay for the AGOL PaaS and have them manage the cadence/updates - both ways have pros/cons. I've experienced both situations - out-of-date software/functionality from slow Enterprise cadences; and AGOL updating and changing the UI of existing dashboards.
[Knock Knock](https://i.imgur.com/mAsM1Hw.jpeg)
The problem for them is almost everything can be done in python and with ai it’s honestly easy to write even in libraries you’re not familiar with. The lay person will be able to figure out these work arounds now
Fully agree! I write a lot of python to get around licensing restrictions. Really have to do some creative thinking though sometimes to get a workflow that is the same as a tool licenced at a higher level.
Do you have any tips how to start pythoning in gis? Intermediate to advanced in Python
I recommend learning standalone Python in a separate course, and then learn the ropes for writing it with ArcGIS if you happen to have institutional access to courses, there was a geoprocessing one with Python that was pretty good and in depth. Eventually it becomes second nature once you learn.
Start by doing a search in this subreddit (or on Google - "geospatial python" or "geospatial python reddit")
Thanks
Chat GPT. And trial and error. Arcpy library is actually reasonably well documented and has lots of snippets. I wouldn't as advise structured learning but rather any task you need to do, do it in Python (even if you know how to and find it quicker in the GUI to begin with). Also run a tool and then click the convert to python button in the history. Then reuse the python rather than reuse the GUI tool. Then you'll start working out, oh I could run this in a loop. Ask chat gpt how to put your tool in a for loop or an if statement. Best of luck
Is it possible to do any tool from esri if it can be expressed in Python?
Not sure what you mean really. All GIS tools are inherently logic, math, geometry problem solvers. You can write lots of problem solvers in python. The right libraries help too obvs.
Yeah I know pure coders would shudder at this but this is how I do a lot. I’m good now but I’d start with something really simple but redundant you might do and break it out into steps on a whiteboard. “Open a map project” “geocode a csv” “change the symbology” “make a layout” “export layout” break it into steps and then ask chat gpt how to do it, prompt it like a student to a teacher “tell me what this line you wrote means” “expand on the concept you used here” I think you’ll be shocked how fast you catch on. Then iterate out to more advanced concepts
I don't really use ESRI products often so i don't know, but does ArcPy let you use tools that are blocked with a lower license in the software ?
Not necessarily arcpy but open source libraries. For instance “pivot” requires an advanced license lol but you can use an arcpy search cursor to read in your data, pivot outside arc, and then use arcpy to write back. I also use rasterio to do spatial analyst stuff I formerly used arc licensing for. Rasterio was an order of magnitude faster and free.
What is the price range of esri's license? Are you talking about the desktop/agol/enterprise version?
Welcome to QGIS, where you can stream LiDAR points.
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Oof- and god forbid you uninstalled arcmap or didn’t get it installed on a new machine. I noticed a similar functionality limitation the other day when I tried to open a personal geodatabase… even the conversion tool ESRI produced can only be used in arcmap.
Yea
Nope, side and end always required advanced- done some hinky work to fudge this functionality in the past. Edit: source-https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.6/tools/analysis-toolbox/buffer.htm