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Configuring Process Insights for Case Management Studio

The capabilities described on this page are included in Appian's advanced and premium capability tiers. Usage limits may apply.

Overview

This page explains how to leverage process insights for your case management processes. It will explain how to add and configure processes with case management data for use in process insights, as well as provide you with links to additional resources.

This page is intended for data stewards. Data stewards are responsible for selecting which record types to include in a process and configuring the case and event data in the process, so that analysts can explore and uncover new insights to optimize the process.

Process insights and Case Management Studio

Once you have your case management app configured and case workflow established, you can start setting up process insights for your business process.

Process insights is a part of Process HQ that lets you take advantage of low-code process mining and allows you to discover inefficiencies and bottlenecks in your business processes, saving you valuable time and resources.

A business process is a set of activities your organization performs as part of their business. For Case Management Studio apps, this would be the workflows configured for all case types. In process insights, we organize and curate information about a case management workflow into a unit of data that can be analyzed to uncover actionable insights. We call this unit of data a process.

To learn more about what makes up a process, see What is a process.

Analyzing case management processes

When configuring case management processes in process insights, you can either:

If you want one process to see insights for all cases and tasks in one centralized place, you'll add a process using the Cases and Task record types that come out-of-the-box with Case Management Studio.

If you want to uncover more actionable insights for specific case types, you'll use the same record types and filter down to just the case type you're interested in.

Before you begin

Before you begin adding your case management data as a process in process insights, make sure that you have access to the Cases and Tasks record types for your process. To enable users to add and configure a process, you need to assign users from your case management studio groups as data stewards to the out-of-the-box Cases and Tasks record types, as well as the Case Type, Status, Priority, Task Behavior Type, and Task Response Option related record types.

Unlike with other record types, the data in the Cases and Tasks record types is prepped and ready to use out-of-the-box in process insights, with no need to do any additional data preparation.

Add one process for all case types and tasks

Data stewards can follow the standard process to add the case management process for analysis in process insights.

When adding a process, select the following case management record types for your case and event record types:

  1. In the Select a Case Record Type step, select the Cases record type that came out-of-the-box with Case Management Studio.
  2. In the Select an Event History Record Type step, select the Tasks record type that came out-of-the-box with Case Management Studio.

Configure process data

Configuring data for the case management process data consists of selecting and renaming record fields to use as attributes in a process and mapping those fields to the appropriate attribute types. To configure process data, data stewards should follow the standard steps while referencing the suggested field information below.

While configuring the process data, we recommend selecting the following fields, using the suggested field mappings, and renaming any duplicate field names to be unique. Data stewards can also optionally select and include other record fields depending on the use case and requirements.

Mapping Case record type fields

Select and map the following fields from the Cases record type, as well as the Case type, Status, and Priority related record types. To include a record field from a related record type, select the field from the list of record fields and custom attributes on the left of the Configure Case Data list.

Record field name Source Field type Field mapping
Case Id Cases record type Integer ID
Title Cases record type Text Descriptive Attribute
Description Cases record type Text Descriptive Attribute
Due On Cases record type Date and time Descriptive Attribute
CompletedOn Cases record type Date and time Descriptive Attribute
Source Cases record type Text Categorical Attribute
Created By Cases record type User Categorical Attribute
Created On Cases record type Date and time Descriptive Attribute
Number Of User Assignees Cases record type Integer Numeric Attribute
Number Of Group Assignees Cases record type Integer Numeric Attribute
Duration Days Cases record type Integer Numeric Attribute
Is Overdue Cases record type Boolean Categorical Attribute
Case Type Name Case type record type Text Categorical Attribute
Status Label Status record type Text Categorical Attribute
Priority Name Priority record type Text Categorical Attribute

For a better analysis experience, you can optionally create a new Groups based on Range custom attribute to group together some of the attributes with numeric field mappings to categorize a range of values. To learn more about creating custom attributes, check out the Custom Attributes page.

Mapping Event History record type fields

Select and map the following fields from the Tasks record type, as well as the Status, Task Behavior Type, and Task Response Option related record types. To include a record field from a related record type, select the field from the list of record fields and custom attributes on the left of the Configure Event Data list.

Record field name Source Field type Field mapping
Case Id Tasks record type Integer Case ID
title Tasks record type Text Activity
Available On Tasks record type Date and time Start
Due On Tasks record type Date and time Descriptive Attribute
SLA Days Tasks record type Integer Numeric Attribute
Completed By Tasks record type User Event User
Completed On Tasks record type Date and time End
Is Ad Hoc Tasks record type Boolean Categorical Attribute
Is Completed Tasks record type Boolean Categorical Attribute
Status Label Status record type Text Categorical Attribute
Label Task Behavior Type record type Text Categorical Attribute
Is Automated Tasks Behavior Type record type Boolean Categorical Attribute
Label Task Response Option record type Text Categorical Attribute

Renaming duplicate fields

To help make the process data and insights understandable at a glance, it is important for either data stewards or analysts to provide helpful and unique names for each field.

Because of the way that some fields in the Cases and Tasks record types are named, there are duplicate field names that data stewards will need to edit before continuing. These fields should have unique names that help users to easily understand the purpose of the field.

For example, you could rename the multiple Label fields to describe what they are labeling, such as:

  • Priority label
  • Task behavior type label
  • Task response option label

Once a data steward has finished adding the process, analysts can use the Rename Attributes option to ensure the names are clear and meaningful for business users. Check out the Add Process page, to learn more about renaming attributes.

Configuring process properties and security

Data stewards can follow the standard steps to:

Next steps

Once a data steward has added and configured your case management data as a process, analysts and other business users can start exploring and investigating the process, uncovering insights that will help your organization optimize and improve the process.

Process insights provides a number of default key performance indicators (KPIs) to help you measure the success of your process. You can also create custom KPIs to track the indicators most relevant to your business.

Add a process for a case type

If you want a more detailed look at specific processes and get the most out of process insights and Case Management Studio, you can also report on individual case types. To do this, we recommend that you create a process for each case type.

To add a process for a case type, you'll first need to create bi-directional relationships between some of the record types used by your case management app. Bi-directional relationships are record type relationships on both sides of related record types that make it easier for process insights to find information. The record types that came out-of-the-box with Case Management Studio or were generated for you by Studio already have relationships set up to go one way, so you simply need to set up relationships going the opposite way.

For example, there's already a relationship set up between the All Cases record type and the Case record type, so to create a bi-directional relationship all you would need to do is add a relationship going back the other way—from the Case record type to the All Cases record type.

To add a process for a case type, you'll first need to create bi-directional relationships between four key record types. Below is a table showing the existing relationships between the record types, the relationships that you'll need to add, and which record type to add the relationship on.

Existing relationship New relationship to create Where to add the relationship
Case Type record type to Category record type Category record type to Case Type record type Add to the Category record type
Category record type to All Cases record type All Cases record type to Category record type Add to All Cases record type
All Cases record type to Case record type Case record type to All Cases record type Add to the Case record type.

Note:  Each of these record types may have additional naming prefixes or slightly different names.

Add bi-directional relationships

To create bi-directional relationships in support of adding a process for a case type:

  1. Open one of the record types listed above.
  2. In the RELATIONSHIPS section on the Data Model page, click ADD RELATIONSHIP.
  3. Select one of the record types above to relate to this record type.
  4. Click NEXT.
  5. For Relationship Type, select One to One.
  6. Select the common record fields for the relationship. We recommend selecting primary key ID fields as common fields, like categoryId, allcasesdataId, and caseId.
  7. In the Write and Delete Related Records field, keep the default option selected: Do not write or delete <record type name 2> when modifying <record type name 1>.
  8. Click ADD, then SAVE CHANGES.
  9. Follow these same steps to set up the rest of the necessary relationships for your record types.

To learn more about record type relationships, see our page on Adding record type relationships.

Note that you will need to set up the relationship between the All Cases record type and the relevant category record type for each case type you want to report on.

Add a process

Now that you have your additional relationships set up, you can follow the above steps to add a process for each case type you want. The only change in these steps is while configuring your case data using the standard steps to add a process.

Follow the instructions in step 3 of the Configure process data section on the Add Process page with the below modifications:

  1. Click FILTER DATA and Add Filter.
  2. For Field, select the Case Type ID field.
  3. For Operator, select Equals.
  4. For Value, enter the case type ID for the case type you want to create a process for.

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