Process Data

From Q-BPM

Process Data

Process Data refers to data continuously added throughout a series of business processes. For instance, in the process of a circular for everyone's stamp of approval, it means "data described in the circular".

1 Overview of Process Data
2 Divergence Judgment by Process Data
3 Analysis of Completed Process Data
4 Related Articles

Overview of Process Data

Process Data refers to a set of data added in series of business processes, and data is usually added (modified in some cases) when each task ends.

As a concept, whenever you make a "process" (precisely saying, a "Process Instance"), you have a set of Process Data to manage, and when the process ends, these Process Data is visible result, in another word "log". The process data group in the completed process is statistically analyzed, and used for the process improvement in most cases.

Because the principal purpose of Business Process Diagrams is to express flow of a business or a procedure, it is difficult to describe a format for Process Data in diagrams. When it is called "process definition data", it refers to "definition of processes" which a workflow engine interprets (in many cases, Process Diagrams and information about person in charge.

Divergence Judgment by Process Data

Regarding conditional judgments when flow diverges(*), flows to take are selected mostly on the basis of its Process Data. (*)Gateways or Conditional Sequence Flow in BPMN diagrams, etc.

At the moment of a conditional judgment, you can refer to:

solely the process data at the time of the divergence,
also the set of completed Process Data,
also data and information in other processes or systems,

it depends on the product specification of the BPM engine (workflow engine).

Analysis of Completed Process Data

Performance Analysis

Completed Process Data are often used for a variety of performance analysis as follows.

Count the number of cases during day, month or year,
Count the number of cases daily during day, month or year, according to the person in charge,
Sum up a specific column, (e.g., total of sales),
Calculate the average of the difference between starting time and ending time,　(calculate required time for the process).