Overview
The Deadline filter selects cases based on whether a specific activity was performed before, after, or on the same day as a deadline timestamp stored in an event attribute. This temporal comparison filter helps identify deadline compliance and violations by comparing activity timestamps with deadline values. The filter operates at the case level, meaning entire cases are included or excluded based on whether they contain activities that meet the specified deadline criteria.
Unlike filters that compare dates against fixed values, the Deadline filter compares activity timestamps against dynamic deadline values stored as event attributes in your data. This makes it ideal for analyzing processes where each activity has its own deadline recorded in the event log.
Common Uses
- Late Payment Detection: Find invoices paid after their due date to identify late payment penalties or interest charges.
- Delivery Performance: Identify orders delivered before or after promised delivery dates to assess fulfillment accuracy.
- Compliance Monitoring: Detect activities performed outside of allowed timeframes to identify regulatory violations.
- SLA Violation Analysis: Find cases where service activities exceeded their service level agreement deadlines.
- Early Completion Analysis: Identify activities completed before their scheduled dates to recognize efficiency opportunities.
- Same-Day Processing: Find activities that were performed on the same day as their deadline for just-in-time processing analysis.
Settings
Activity: Select the activity you want to compare against its deadline. The dropdown shows all available activities in your event log. The filter will examine only events with this activity name.
Attribute Time Name: Select the event attribute that contains the deadline timestamp. This must be a DateTime column in your event table. The filter will compare each selected activity's timestamp against the deadline value in this attribute for the same event.
Search Type: Choose the type of temporal comparison to perform:
- Activity Time Greater Than: Finds cases where the activity timestamp (including time) occurred after the deadline timestamp. Use this for finding activities that missed their deadline.
- Activity Date Greater Than: Finds cases where the activity date (ignoring time) occurred after the deadline date. Use this for date-only deadline comparisons.
- Activity Time Less Than: Finds cases where the activity timestamp (including time) occurred before the deadline timestamp. Use this for finding activities completed early.
- Activity Date Less Than: Finds cases where the activity date (ignoring time) occurred before the deadline date. Use this for date-only early completion analysis.
- Activity Time Same Day: Finds cases where the activity and deadline occurred on the same date, regardless of time. Use this for same-day processing analysis.
Important: The deadline attribute must exist in the event table (not the case table). Each event can have its own deadline value, allowing for activity-specific deadline tracking.
Examples
Example 1: Late Invoice Payments
Scenario: Your accounts payable process has a "Pay Invoice" activity, and each invoice event has a "DueDate" attribute. You need to identify all cases where invoices were paid after their due date to calculate late payment penalties.
Settings:
- Activity: "Pay Invoice"
- Attribute Time Name: "DueDate"
- Search Type: Activity Time Greater Than
Result: The filter selects only cases where the "Pay Invoice" activity timestamp is later than the DueDate value for that event, indicating the invoice was paid late.
Insights: This helps you identify late payment patterns, calculate penalty amounts, understand which vendors are affected by late payments, and analyze the average delay in payment processing.
Example 2: On-Time Delivery Performance
Scenario: Your order fulfillment process has a "Deliver Order" activity with a "PromisedDeliveryDate" attribute. You want to find orders delivered before the promised date to measure early delivery performance.
Settings:
- Activity: "Deliver Order"
- Attribute Time Name: "PromisedDeliveryDate"
- Search Type: Activity Date Less Than
Result: The filter returns cases where the delivery date was before the promised delivery date, showing early deliveries.
Insights: Identify which orders were delivered early, understand if early delivery correlates with customer satisfaction, and determine if promised dates are too conservative.
Example 3: Same-Day Approval Processing
Scenario: Your loan approval process has an "Approve Loan" activity with an "ApplicationDate" attribute. You need to find applications that were approved on the same day they were submitted to measure fast-track processing efficiency.
Settings:
- Activity: "Approve Loan"
- Attribute Time Name: "ApplicationDate"
- Search Type: Activity Time Same Day
Result: The filter selects cases where the approval activity occurred on the same calendar day as the application date.
Insights: Measure the percentage of same-day approvals, identify characteristics of fast-track applications, and understand which loan types receive expedited processing.
Example 4: SLA Compliance Analysis
Scenario: Your support ticket process has a "Resolve Ticket" activity with an "SLA_Deadline" attribute. You need to find tickets resolved after their SLA deadline to measure compliance and identify problem areas.
Settings:
- Activity: "Resolve Ticket"
- Attribute Time Name: "SLA_Deadline"
- Search Type: Activity Time Greater Than
Result: The filter returns cases where ticket resolution occurred after the SLA deadline, indicating SLA violations.
Insights: Calculate SLA violation rates, identify which ticket categories have the most violations, understand average delay times for missed SLAs, and prioritize process improvement efforts.
Example 5: Manufacturing Schedule Adherence
Scenario: Your manufacturing process has a "Complete Production" activity with a "ScheduledCompletionDate" attribute. You want to analyze cases that finished production before the scheduled date to identify efficiency gains.
Settings:
- Activity: "Complete Production"
- Attribute Time Name: "ScheduledCompletionDate"
- Search Type: Activity Date Less Than
Result: The filter selects cases where production was completed before the scheduled date, showing ahead-of-schedule performance.
Insights: Identify production lines that consistently finish early, understand which products have the most schedule buffer, and optimize scheduling based on actual performance.
Output
The filter returns a dataset containing only cases where the specified activity met the deadline comparison criteria. All events and attributes from the selected cases are preserved in the output.
If the specified deadline attribute does not exist in the event table, the filter returns the original dataset unchanged without applying any filtering.
Cases that do not contain the specified activity are automatically excluded from the results.
This documentation is part of the mindzieStudio process mining platform.