Drill Down to Insights

This page applies to business users. It describes how to drill down into analytical details about your process and create insights that highlight areas for process improvements and efficiency.

You must have Analyst permissions for a process to drill down to and save insights for that process.

Overview

Copy link to clipboard

As you explore your process, you may find characteristics of that process that you want to specifically analyze to see how they're impacting the speed and efficiency of the process.

You can drill down into these characteristics to evaluate whether they are likely contributors to process slowness or high numbers of unwanted outcomes. As you drill down, Process HQ makes intelligent suggestions and provides you with a calculation called potential reduction. This calculation helps you easily determine the importance of characteristic.

As you evaluate the characteristics of your process, you can combine them into an insight, so you can present it to and collaborate with colleagues in your organization. By combining characteristics in an insight, you'll be able to understand better where problems are occurring in the process and how to resolve them.

When you save an insight, Process HQ automatically associates it with a KPI, even if you start drilling down from a process diagram or case attribute. The KPI then serves as the central point of access for your saved insights, so you can get started sharing actionable conclusions with your organization.

What to look for

Copy link to clipboard

A business process consists of a series of activities, sequences, and attributes, corresponding to real-world tasks and information about those tasks.

You can evaluate your process from either of the following directions:

• Focus on duration: Look at how long a case, activity, or sequence takes on average, so you can speed up slow processes. The potential reduction you see will show the days of work you can save each year.
• Focus on count: Look at on how often an unwanted outcome occurs, so you can reduce or even eliminate that outcome from your process. An unwanted outcome can be cases with a specific attribute or cases that include a specific sequence or activity. The potential reduction you see will show you the number of unwanted outcomes you can eliminate to bring these cases in line with the average.

To focus on how a characteristic impacts duration, look closely at:

• Case duration: How long do cases with a specific characteristic take on average?
• Sequence duration: How long do individual sequences take on average?
• Activity duration: How long do individual activities take on average?

To focus on how a characteristic impacts a count, look closely at:

• Sequences of activities:
  • Did Activity A follow Activity B, when B should follow A?
  • Did the process continue through Activity A, B, and C, but then loop back to Activity B again?
• Repetitions of activities: Did Activity A happen twice in a row?
• Unwanted outcomes: What are the characteristics of cases with unwanted Activity A that might help you to target improvement?

As you evaluate characteristics both individually and collectively, follow the guidelines described below.

Look for the unexpected and meaningful

Copy link to clipboard

Pay the most attention to analysis that reveals something unexpected and meaningful about your process.

For example, in a Financial Onboarding process, the analysis might reveal that cases with a Country attribute of Spain take far longer than cases in other countries. Or the analysis might reveal that the sequence Financial Review to Financial Review, a repetition of a single activity, is unexpectedly happening in a high percentage of the slowest cases.

Ignore the expected and unchangeable

Copy link to clipboard

Ignore analysis that you'd expect based on the business context, and ignore analysis of attributes, activities, or sequences that your organization doesn't have the power to change.

For example, your case data might include an attribute value that indicates the case must undergo review and approval by an external agency (for example, a case attribute like Customer Type with a value of Federal). In this scenario, your organization is not likely to be able to improve the slowness of steps associated with that external review.

On the other hand, your case data might include an attribute value that indicates a third-party vendor completes certain steps (for example, an event attribute like User with a value of Wickham Outsourcing Unlimited). In this scenario, you might have service-level agreements with that vendor that you can leverage for change.

Remember the inherited filters

Copy link to clipboard

The data you see on drilling down is always focused by filters set at higher levels, so the data is increasingly narrower with each level. If you're not seeing data you expect when you start drilling down, check the setting of the inherited filters.

These higher-level filters include:

• Time period
• View filters
• KPI definition

For example, in the image above:

• The time period might be set to show only cases between June and December 2024.
• The view filters might focus the data on cases with an Approved (Status) attribute.
• The KPI might count only cases that include a Request for Information activity.

In this example, when you start to drill down, you'll only see an analysis of approved cases that include an Request for Information activity between June and December 2024.

Before you begin

Copy link to clipboard

• Explore your business process to determine what aspects of the data you want to look most closely at.
• (Optional) You can always use the Average Duration KPI as your starting point, but as you get to know your process better, create a KPI that tracks a specific activity, sequence, or attribute that's particularly relevant to your business.

Step 1: Start drilling down

Copy link to clipboard

You can start drilling down in a number of ways:

• Start with a KPI.
• Start with the process diagram.
• Start with a case attribute.

How you start depends on what you want to look closely at:

Start with a KPI

Copy link to clipboard

You can drill down from either a count KPI or an average duration KPI, including the system-provided Average Duration KPI.

To start drilling down from a KPI, go to the appropriate location, and do one of the following:

The drilldown page displays.

Start with the process diagram

Copy link to clipboard

To start drilling down from the process diagram:

1. Access a view.

2. In the process diagram, click on a connector or a node.

   Note:  You can only drill down from a node if your event data includes a start timestamp and an end timestamp.

   

   

   The sequence or activity details display.

   For example:

   

   

3. Review the metrics, visualizations, and KPI preview. Your goal is to determine whether the analysis of this sequence or activity is meaningful based on your business context.

4. Click START DRILLING DOWN. The drilldown page displays.

Start with a case attribute

Copy link to clipboard

You can start drilling down on a specific case attribute from a KPI page.

To start drilling down on a case attribute:

1. Access a KPI.

2. In the Case Attributes tab, click an attribute value. The attribute value details dialog displays.

   For example:

   

   

3. Review the potential reduction, metrics, and visualizations. Your goal is to determine whether this attribute value is meaningful based on your business context.

4. Click START DRILLING DOWN. The drilldown page displays.

   The case attribute you selected as the starting point has been automatically added as a characteristic to the Insight pane.

   For example:

   

   

Step 2: Review characteristics

Copy link to clipboard

Now that you've started drilling down, you're looking at the suggested characteristics list in the drilldown page.

For example:

Decide what you want to do next:

• Follow Process HQ's recommendations
• Review an already-known attribute

Follow Process HQ's recommendations

Copy link to clipboard

To follow process HQ's recommendations:

1. Click the first attribute value in the suggested characteristics list. The attribute value details display in the characteristics pane.

2. Review the potential reduction, metrics, and visualizations for the attribute. Your goal is to determine whether this characteristic is unexpected and meaningful in your business context.

Review an already-known attribute

Copy link to clipboard

You may already know the process well enough that you have a specific attribute value you want to drill down on right away.

To drilldown an already-known attribute value:

1. At the end of the suggested characteristics list, click Browse All. The All Attributes list displays. This list contains all attributes and attribute values associated with the process.

   For example:

   

   

   Tip:  As you review all attributes, you'll continue to see intelligent recommendations via the SUGGESTED tag. This tag appears next to attributes associated with long durations or frequent occurrences depending on the related KPI.

2. (Optional) In the Attribute column, click on an attribute name to view a comparison of the attribute values. To return to the list, click the arrow next to the pane title.
3. In the Attribute Values column, click on the value you're interested in to view the attribute value details.
4. Review the potential reduction, metrics, and visualizations. Your goal is to determine whether this attribute value is unexpected and meaningful in your business context.

Step 3: Add a characteristic to your insight

Copy link to clipboard

Based on your review of the characteristic, you can decide that the characteristic is meaningful enough that you'd like to see what else sticks out about cases with that characteristic.

To see the analysis of those additional characteristics, click KEEP DRILLING DOWN in the attribute details header.

The characteristic now displays in the Insight pane.

For example:

The characteristics pane shows you the next characteristics Process HQ suggests you evaluate.

When you add a characteristic to an insight, you're essentially applying a new filter to the cases you're evaluating. The data on the page narrows to the context of cases affected by the characteristic you added.

For example, let's say all cases you were evaluating originally included the following:

If you add the characteristic, Spain (Country), to an insight, the new attribute values you can review now include the following:

You'd see Corporate, Rejected, and Approved as possible attribute values to evaluate.

Step 4: Review and add more characteristics

Copy link to clipboard

Typically, a single characteristic doesn't give enough information to identify concrete actions you can take to improve the process. An insight is most useful when the combined characteristics are granular enough that you can see specific actions to take, but they still apply to a large number of cases so that acting on the insight will provide a measurable improvement. Typically, this means you'll add about two to three findings to an insight.

For example:

Expect an iterative process as you review more characteristics and add them to your insight. You'll evaluate one aspect of your process, then evaluate the next aspect in the context of that first aspect, until you reach an actionable conclusion. Each step of the way, the characteristics pane shows you the next characteristics Process HQ suggests you evaluate next.

As you're evaluating characteristics, you might want to refine the characteristics included in the insight. For example, you might determine that a specific characteristic relates to a condition your organization does not have power to change. To support this refinement flow, you can remove the most recent characteristic from an insight or clear all characteristics from the insight to start your evaluation over.

Remove the most recent characteristic

Copy link to clipboard

To remove the most recent characteristic, click the three-dot menu in the characteristic, then select Remove.

Process HQ removes that characteristic from the insight pane and appropriately adjusts the potential reduction calculated for the insight.

Clear the insight

Copy link to clipboard

To clear all characteristics from the insight, select CLEAR in the insight header.

Then, click CLEAR INSIGHT to confirm. The drilldown page displays, and you can start reviewing characteristics from scratch.

Step 5: Save the insight

Copy link to clipboard

Once you've built a sufficiently actionable insight, you can save it to share with colleagues and collaborate together.

To save a new insight:

1. In the header of the drilldown page, click SAVE INSIGHT.

   

   

   The Save New Insight dialog displays.
   
   

2. For Insight Name, enter a short, meaningful name for the insight. For example, Individual Accounts in Spain.

   Tip:  Once you've saved an insight, you can take advantage of AI-generated summaries in select regions.

3. Continue as appropriate:

   • Stop drilling down: To stop drilling down, click SAVE AND EXIT. The insight page displays, where you can review the insight you created and even start collaborating on the insight with colleagues.
   • Keep drilling down: To review and evaluate more characteristics of the process, click SAVE AND CONTINUE. The drilldown page continues displaying, with the page title in the header showing the insight name you configured. The characteristics pane shows you the next characteristics Process HQ suggests you evaluate.

Feedback

Copy link to clipboard