Overview
The Process Map calculator creates an interactive visual representation of how cases flow through your process. It displays activities as nodes and transitions between activities as edges, with frequencies and performance metrics overlaid on the visualization. This provides an intuitive, at-a-glance understanding of your actual process flow compared to your intended process design.
The process map automatically identifies all unique activities, calculates how frequently each transition occurs, and highlights the most common process variants. Unlike static process diagrams, the interactive map allows you to explore different process paths, drill down into specific transitions, and filter the view to focus on relevant patterns.
Common Uses
- Visualize the actual process flow to understand how work moves through your organization
- Identify bottlenecks by examining where cases slow down or accumulate
- Discover process deviations and non-standard workflows that bypass controls
- Compare actual process execution against intended process design
- Focus on high-frequency paths to prioritize improvement efforts
- Explore rework loops and identify where cases cycle back through activities
- Present process findings to stakeholders using clear, visual representations
Settings
Default Number of Top Variants: Specify how many of the most common process variants should be highlighted when the map initially loads. This setting helps simplify complex processes by focusing on the paths that account for the majority of cases.
The default value is 5 variants, which typically balances comprehensiveness with clarity. You can set this to a lower number (1-3) for executive dashboards requiring simple views, or a higher number (10-20) for detailed process analysis sessions. Users can adjust this interactively in the map after it loads.
Legacy Map Mode: An optional setting for maintaining consistency with older historical notebooks. When enabled, the visualization uses older rendering algorithms and styling. This is typically left disabled (false) for all new analysis work.
Examples
Example 1: Discovering Purchase Order Approval Bottlenecks
Scenario: Your procurement team reports that purchase orders are taking too long to approve, but you are not sure where the delays occur. You want to visualize the approval process to identify the bottleneck activities.
Settings:
- Default Number of Top Variants: 5
- Legacy Map Mode: false
Output:
The process map displays your purchase order flow with nodes representing activities and edges showing transitions. The visualization reveals:
- Create PO -> Submit for Approval (1,847 cases, avg 2 hours)
- Submit for Approval -> Manager Review (1,847 cases, avg 3 days - highlighted in red as slow)
- Manager Review -> Finance Review (1,245 cases, avg 1 day)
- Manager Review -> Reject (602 cases, avg 4 hours)
- Finance Review -> Approve (1,098 cases, avg 2 hours)
- Finance Review -> Senior Manager Review (147 cases, avg 5 days - highlighted in red)
The map shows the top 5 variants, with the happy path (Create -> Submit -> Manager -> Finance -> Approve) representing 59% of all cases.
Insights: The visualization immediately identifies two bottleneck activities: Manager Review takes an average of 3 days, and Senior Manager Review takes 5 days. The transition from Submit for Approval to Manager Review is highlighted in red, indicating it contributes most significantly to overall duration. Additionally, 32% of cases (602 out of 1,847) get rejected at Manager Review, suggesting either poor PO quality or unclear approval criteria. By filtering the map to show only rejected cases, you can explore what distinguishes them from approved cases.
Example 2: Visualizing Invoice Processing Compliance
Scenario: Your finance department must follow a three-way match process for invoice payments, but you suspect some invoices bypass this control. You want to visualize the actual process flow to identify where compliance breaks down.
Settings:
- Default Number of Top Variants: 8
- Legacy Map Mode: false
Output:
The process map shows your invoice processing with multiple diverging paths:
- Standard compliant path (68% of cases): Receive Invoice -> Match PO -> Match Receipt -> Approve -> Pay
- Non-compliant path 1 (18% of cases): Receive Invoice -> Match PO -> Approve -> Pay (skips receipt matching)
- Non-compliant path 2 (8% of cases): Receive Invoice -> Approve -> Pay (skips all matching)
- Rework path (6% of cases): Receive Invoice -> Match PO -> Match Receipt -> Rework -> Match PO -> Approve -> Pay
Edge thickness indicates frequency, making the non-compliant paths visually obvious as distinct branches from the main flow.
Insights: Only 68% of invoices follow the compliant three-way match process. The map clearly shows where compliance breaks down - 26% of invoices bypass either receipt matching or both matching steps entirely. By clicking on the non-compliant paths, you can identify which departments or vendors are most frequently associated with these violations. The rework loop affecting 6% of cases suggests data quality issues in either purchase orders or receipt documentation that warrant investigation.
Example 3: Simplifying a Complex Process for Executive Review
Scenario: You need to present your customer onboarding process to executives who want a high-level understanding without overwhelming detail. Your process has 87 different variants.
Settings:
- Default Number of Top Variants: 2
- Legacy Map Mode: false
Output:
The process map displays only the two most common paths, which together account for 73% of all cases:
- Variant 1 (48%): Application -> Credit Check -> Document Upload -> Review -> Approve -> Account Setup
- Variant 2 (25%): Application -> Credit Check -> Document Upload -> Review -> Request Additional Info -> Document Upload -> Review -> Approve -> Account Setup
The simplified view removes the visual clutter of 85 other variants, focusing on the paths that represent nearly three-quarters of all customer onboarding.
Insights: The clean, two-variant view is perfect for executive presentation. It shows that just under half of customers move smoothly through onboarding, while a quarter require additional information. The map makes it immediately obvious where the additional information request loop occurs, helping executives understand the impact of incomplete initial applications. During the presentation, you can interactively increase the number of visible variants to explore edge cases if questions arise.
Example 4: Analyzing Regional Process Variation
Scenario: Your organization has five regional offices that should all follow the same order fulfillment process, but you suspect significant variation in how they execute it. You want to compare process maps across regions.
Settings:
- Create five separate process map blocks, each preceded by a region filter
- Default Number of Top Variants: 10 for each region
- Legacy Map Mode: false
Output:
Region A process map:
- 12 unique variants visible
- Top variant represents 72% of cases
- Standard path dominates the visualization
- Average case duration: 4.2 days
Region B process map:
- 43 unique variants visible
- Top variant represents only 31% of cases
- Many diverging paths creating a complex web
- Average case duration: 8.7 days
Regions C, D, and E fall between these extremes.
Insights: The visual comparison immediately reveals that Region B lacks process standardization compared to Region A. Region B's complex process map with many variants correlates directly with their longer average duration (8.7 days vs 4.2 days). This suggests Region A's standardized approach should be studied and potentially adopted by other regions. You can click through the specific variants in Region B to understand what drives their complexity - it may be legitimate differences in customer types, or it may indicate training gaps or local workarounds that should be addressed.
Example 5: Identifying Rework Patterns in Quality Control
Scenario: Your manufacturing quality control process shows high variation in case duration, and you suspect rework loops are the cause. You want to visualize where rework occurs and how frequently.
Settings:
- Default Number of Top Variants: 15
- Legacy Map Mode: false
Output:
The process map displays your quality control flow with several circular patterns indicating rework:
- Standard path (42%): Inspect -> Pass -> Package -> Ship (avg 1.2 days)
- Single rework (28%): Inspect -> Fail -> Repair -> Inspect -> Pass -> Package -> Ship (avg 3.4 days)
- Double rework (15%): Inspect -> Fail -> Repair -> Inspect -> Fail -> Repair -> Inspect -> Pass -> Package -> Ship (avg 5.8 days)
- Triple rework (8%): Inspect -> Fail -> Repair -> Inspect -> Fail -> Repair -> Inspect -> Fail -> Repair -> Inspect -> Pass -> Package -> Ship (avg 8.9 days)
The circular edges from Inspect back to Repair are visually prominent, with edge labels showing how many times cases loop through each cycle.
Insights: The process map makes rework loops visually obvious through the circular patterns. Only 42% of cases pass inspection on the first try, meaning 58% of cases require at least one repair cycle. The duration increases nearly linearly with each rework cycle (1.2 -> 3.4 -> 5.8 -> 8.9 days). By clicking on the Inspect -> Fail edge, you can drill down to see which specific defect types or product categories are most commonly associated with failures, helping target root cause analysis on the biggest contributors to rework.
Output
The Process Map calculator generates an interactive visualization with the following features:
Visual Elements:
- Nodes: Represent activities in your process, sized according to frequency
- Edges: Show transitions between activities, with thickness indicating how many cases follow each path
- Colors: Highlight process performance, with red indicating slow transitions and green indicating fast transitions
- Variant highlighting: The most common process paths are emphasized based on your Default Number of Top Variants setting
Interactive Capabilities:
- Zoom and pan: Navigate complex process maps with mouse or touch controls
- Click on nodes: See detailed statistics about a specific activity, including frequency, average duration, and resources
- Click on edges: Examine specific transitions between activities, including case counts and time distributions
- Filter variants: Adjust the number of visible variants interactively to simplify or expand the view
- Drill down to cases: From any node or edge, view the specific cases that followed that path
- Export: Save the process map visualization as an image for presentations or documentation
Metrics Displayed:
- Case counts for each activity and transition
- Percentages showing what proportion of cases follow each path
- Average durations for transitions between activities
- Performance indicators highlighting bottlenecks and delays
The process map integrates seamlessly with filters, so you can create focused views by first filtering to specific case subsets (such as cases from a particular time period, department, or outcome) and then generating the process map for that filtered view.
This documentation is part of the mindzie Studio process mining platform.