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

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.

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As you evaluate the characteristics of your process, you can combine them into an insight, so you can present what you've uncovered 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.

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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

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

To evaluate your process, you can focus on:

• Duration: Look at how long a case, activity, or sequence takes on average, so you can speed up slow processes. Process HQ calculates a potential reduction that shows the days of work you could save each year.

• Count: Look at 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. Process HQ calculates a potential reduction that shows the number of unwanted outcomes you could eliminate to bring these cases in line with the average.

• Conformance: Look at how often activities within a sequence occur in the expected order. Process HQ calculates a potential reduction that shows the number of unexpected sequences you could eliminate to improve your overall conformance rate.

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

Look for the unexpected and meaningful

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

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

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

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For example, in the image above:

• The time period is set in the view 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 a Request for Information activity between June and December 2024.

Before you begin

• 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

When you're exploring your process, you can drill down in the following ways:

• Start with a KPI.
• Start with a case attribute.
• Start with the conformance rate.

You can start with different parts of your process view depending on what you want to review.

To Review	Start With
Average duration of all cases in the current view	Average Case Duration KPI
Average duration of cases with a specific attribute	Case attribute or case duration KPI
Average duration of a sequence	Sequence duration KPI
Average duration of an activity	Activity duration KPI
Occurrence of an activity, sequence, or attribute	Count KPI
Conformance of activities to the expected order	Conformance KPI

Start with a KPI

You can drill down on either an average duration or a count KPI, then view suggested insights for the KPI, as described in the sections below.

Drilling down and suggested insights are only available if the KPI's trend direction is set to "Lower is better." For more information, see Define the duration KPI and Define the count KPI.

Drill down on a KPI

You can drill down on a KPI to discover insights about the cases, sequences or activities with those characteristics.

• To look more closely at the average duration, drill down on an average duration KPI.
• To look more closely at the count, drill down on a count KPI.

1. Access the KPI.
2. Go to the Suggested Insights tab. This tab displays a feed of suggested insights.

3. Review a suggested insight to determine whether the combination of characteristics it highlights are unexpected and meaningful in your business context.

   Tip:  You can review additional insight details by clicking SEE DETAILS. The details open in a new tab so you can easily compare the insights. If you add a comment while viewing insight details, the system automatically saves the suggested insight.

4. Click SAVE to save the insight.
5. Skip the rest of the steps on this page. That's right! You can start collaborating on the insight with colleagues right away.

Alternatively, you can evaluate from scratch by reviewing each suggested characteristic individually before combining that characteristic with others. To take this more deliberate approach:

1. Access the KPI
2. Click START DRILLING DOWN in the KPI header.
3. Continue with Step 2: Review drilldown details on this page.

Suggested insights

Suggested insights can accelerate your time to real action by presenting you with insights that combine multiple characteristics right away. Each insight in the feed contains a snapshot of information to help you evaluate the relevance of the insight.

For duration KPIs, suggested insights display in terms of cases, activities, or sequences depending on what duration the KPI is tracking.

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#	Element	Description
1	Increase on average	How much the cases, activities, or sequences related to this KPI impact the average duration for all cases, activities, or sequences in the process.
2	Potential reduction	An estimate of the change in overall process time your organization could see from improving cases, activities, or sequences with these characteristics.
3	Percentage of Cases/Activities/Sequences	A pie chart that shows the percent of cases, activities, or sequences that have the characteristics in the insight. For example, Status is Approved, Region is EMEA and County is Spain.
4	Duration Comparison	A bar chart that compares the average duration of cases, activities, or sequences that have these characteristics to the average duration of all cases, activities, or sequences related to the KPI.
5	Duration Trend	A trend chart that shows changes over time for both the average duration of cases, activities, or sequences that have these characteristics and the average duration of all cases, activities, or sequences related to the KPI.

For count KPIs, suggested insights display in terms of cases, activities, or sequences depending on what count the KPI is tracking.

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#	Element	Description
1	Impact case/occurrence count by	How much the cases, activities, or sequences related to this KPI impact the total number of occurrences for all cases, activities, or sequences in the process.
2	Potential reduction	An estimate of the change in occurrence count your organization could see from improving cases, activities, or sequences with these characteristics.
3	Percentage of Cases/Activities/Sequences	A pie chart that shows the count and percentage of cases, activities, or sequences related to this KPI that have these characteristics.
4	Count Comparison	A bar chart that compares the count of cases, activities, or sequences that have these characteristics to the average count of all cases, activities, or sequences related to the KPI.
5	Count Trend	A trend chart that shows changes over time for both the count of cases, activities, or sequences that have these characteristics and the count of all cases, activities, or sequences related to the KPI.

Start with a case attribute

To look more closely at a case attribute, like the average duration of cases with a specific attribute, you can start drilling down on a specific case attribute from the Case Attributes in the 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:

   

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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 details display.

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

   For example:

   

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Start with the conformance rate

When you start drilling down on conformance, you'll be looking at the number of sequences that don't follow the expected order, which typically you'd want to reduce. As a result, the calculations and visualizations you'll see as you drill down will be the same you'd see if you were drilling down directly from a count KPI.

You can drill down on the conformance rate for activities and sequences from a view.

If you have previously defined the expected activity order for your process, you can start drilling down on a list of all unexpected sequences.

To drill down on the list of unexpected sequences:

1. Access a view.

2. Go to the Conformance and Costs tab.

3. Next to Total Case Conformance, click DRILL DOWN.

   The Drilldown: All Unexpected Sequences dialog displays.

   This dialog contains a list of sequences in the view that do not conform with the expected activity order.

   For example:

   

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4. Click a sequence in the list.

5. Click KEEP DRILLING DOWN. The drilldown details display, and you can now review suggested characteristics.

Alternatively, you can define the expected activity order as you go when you start drilling down on an individual activity in the Conformance and Costs list.

To drill down on an individual activity:

1. Access a view.

2. Go to the Conformance and Costs tab.

3. In the grid, click the name of the activity you want to drill down on. The Drill Down: Unexpected Sequences for <Activity Name> dialog displays.

   If the expected activity order for this activity is already defined, the dialog contains a list of sequences in the view that start with the selected activity and do not conform to the expected activity order.

   For example:

   

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4. If you have not previously defined the expected activity order, do so now:

   1. Select an expected sequence:

      Expected Sequence	Description
      Any activity can follow except for itself	Select this option if the activity should not immediately repeat. No action is needed on the Specific Activities list.
      Any activity can follow	Select this option if any activity can follow this activity. No action is needed on the Specific Activities list. This option is the equivalent of setting no expected order; select it if you want to return to that default behavior.
      No activity should follow	Select this option for the activity that represents the end of the business process. No action is needed on the Specific Activities list.
      Only specific activities should follow	Select this option to set the expected sequence order. Then, from the Specific Activities list, select one or more activities that can appropriately follow the activity. Tip: If you select this option, we recommend filtering your view on completed cases only. When the activity specified in the Activity column occurs, Process HQ categorizes it as expected until another activity follows it. As a result, the conformance rate may appear high while cases are in progress.

   2. Click UPDATE.

5. (Optional) To edit the expected activity order:
   1. Click . The Expected Activity Order pane displays.
   2. Edit the expected sequence.

6. Click a sequence in the list.

7. Click KEEP DRILLING DOWN. The drilldown details display, and you can review suggested characteristics.

Step 2: Review drilldown details

In the drilldown details, you'll find the information you need to identify the specific characteristics that are having the greatest impact on your process.

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Let's take a tour, starting with the Comparison KPI section.

Comparison KPI

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The Comparison KPI contains the value to which Process HQ compares cases with the current characteristic(s). This is the value used to calculate potential reduction, which is displayed in the KPI.

For example, in the image above, the potential reduction is one week and four days. This value is calculated based on the value in the KPI and the characteristics for this specific Average Duration KPI.

If you implement changes related to the characteristics in this insight, this is the KPI where you'd see improvement.

The comparison KPI also includes a trend chart representing changes in the KPI over time period set for the insight. You can hover over the chart to see more details for each data point.

Suggested characteristics

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The suggested characteristics list displays attribute values that are potentially impacting cases or occurrences related to the KPI. By default, this list contains only attribute values with highest potential reduction, listed in order of greatest impact. The attribute values in the list are associated with either longer durations or higher occurrence counts, depending on whether you're evaluating your process based on duration or count.

Each item in this list includes the following elements:

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#	Element	Description
1	Attribute Value	The attribute value. For example, for an attribute named Country, this value would be the name of an individual country, like Spain.
2	Attribute Name	The attribute name. For example, Country.
3	Case or occurrence count	The number of cases or occurrences related to this KPI that have this attribute value, as well as what percent those cases or occurrences are out of all cases or occurrences related to the KPI.
4	Potential reduction	The potential reduction that Process HQ has calculated for cases or occurrences with the attribute value.
5	Bar graph	The bar graph shows how the potential reduction for this attribute value compares to the potential reduction for other attribute values in the characteristics list. The longer the bar, the more significant the potential improvement in comparison to other values.

Step 3: Review attribute values

Decide how you want to continue:

• Review an attribute value in the suggested characteristics list if you want to follow Process HQ's recommendations, .
• Review an attribute value in the All Attributes list if you already know a specific attribute value you want to look at.

Review a suggested attribute

Click an attribute value in the suggested characteristics list to see the attribute value details.

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

For example:

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The attribute details are divided into the following sections:

• Attribute name and value: This section specifies the selected attribute value and attribute name. You can click the back arrow next to the attribute name to return to the list you were previously viewing, or click KEEP DRILLING DOWN to look at other characteristics of cases with this attribute value.

• Potential Reduction: The potential reduction that Process HQ calculated for cases or occurrences with the attribute, as well as a brief sentence describing how improving these cases or occurrences could impact the KPI overall.

• Metrics: Any relevant statistics for this attribute value, so you can assess if the analysis of this attribute is meaningful in the business context. The metrics you see will vary based on whether you're focusing on duration or count when you drill down.

• Visualizations: This section contains charts displaying relevant statistics in relation to each other:

  KPI Type	Visualization
  Duration	Duration Comparison Duration Distribution Duration Trend
  Count	Value Comparison Case Comparison Occurrence Trend

• Cases: You must scroll down to see this section. The section contains a list of cases related to this KPI that have this attribute value, so that you can review information about individual cases.

  For example:

  

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  This section contains the following elements:

  #	Element	Actions Available
  1	Case list	Sort cases by duration or start date: Slowest (by duration): Sorts the list by case duration with the highest case durations at the top. Fastest (by duration): Sorts the list by case duration with the lowest case durations at the top. Latest (by start): Sorts the list by start date with the latest start dates at the top. Earliest (by start): Sorts the list by start date with the earliest start date at the top. Scroll to see cases related to the KPI with the selected attribute value. Click a case to see information about the case in the case details pane.
  2	Case details pane	Review details about the selected case: Case Metrics: Metrics for the case, including: Start: The timestamp of the start activity in this case. End: The timestamp of the end activity in this case. Duration: The total duration of the case. Unique activities: A count of the unique activities that occurred in the case. Executed activities: A count of all activities that occurred in the case, including repetitions. Case Attributes: The names and values of attributes associated with the case. Activity Details: A chronological list of activities that occurred in this case. Use the dropdown menu to select which activity attributes display in the list, or click a column header to sort by that attribute.

Review an already-known attribute

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

To review details for 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:

   

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   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 whether you're evaluating your process based on duration or count.

2. (Optional) In the Attribute column, click on an attribute name to view a comparison of the attribute values. Depending on whether you're evaluating your process based on duration or count, you'll see a duration comparison or a value comparison.
   
   To return to the All Attributes 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 4: Add a characteristic to your insight

Based on your review of the attribute value, you'll be able to decide if the attribute value is meaningful enough to drill down on more characteristics.

To continue, click KEEP DRILLING DOWN in the attribute value details.

Two things happen:

• The suggested characteristics list updates to show you additional attribute values of cases that have that first attribute value.

• The attribute value you reviewed now displays in the Insight pane. This pane enables you to track the characteristics you're currently drilled down on, and view the cumulative effect of the characteristics on the potential reduction calculation.

  For example:

  

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  This pane contains the following sections:

  • In the header, you can view a count of cases or occurrences affected by the insight.
  • In the Characteristics section, you can view the characteristics that have been added to the insight, listed in the order in which they were added to the insight. To view details for the last added characteristic, click the menu for the characteristic, then select View Details.
  • In the Potential Reduction section, you can view the potential reduction that Process HQ has calculated for combined characteristics in this insight.

  Click Show more details to view a brief sentence describing how improving these cases could impact the KPI overall.

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:

Case ID	Country	Account Type	Status
100	Spain	Corporate	Rejected
101	Spain	Corporate	Approved
103	Germany	Individual	Deferred

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

Case ID	Country	Account Type	Status
100	Spain	Corporate	Rejected
101	Spain	Corporate	Approved

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

Step 5: Review and add more characteristics

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.

This means you'll usually want to add about two to three characteristics to an insight. As you do, the Insight pane displays those characteristics in a hierarchical format to represent the cumulative filtering of cases in the insight.

For example:

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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

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

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

Clear the insight

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

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Then, click CLEAR INSIGHT to confirm. The drilldown details display, and you can start reviewing attribute values from scratch.

Step 6: Save the insight

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 page, click SAVE INSIGHT.

   

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   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 details display. 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 details continue displaying, with the page header showing the insight name you configured. The characteristics pane shows you the next characteristics Process HQ suggests you evaluate.

System-generated KPIs

When you save an insight, Process HQ attempts to find an existing KPI to relate the insight to. If the system cannot find an appropriate KPI, it automatically generates a KPI, as follows:

Drilldown Started With	System-generated KPI	Example
case attribute	Average duration KPI based on the process part or case attribute you started on	You started with the activity, Financial Review, so the system creates a duration KPI named Avg. Duration of Financial Review.
conformance rate	Count KPI based on the unexpected sequence you selected	You selected the unexpected sequence, KYC Review to Financial Review, so the system creates a count KPI with that name.

This system-generated KPI is unpinned by default.

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