Chapter 13

Cartography and Navigation

prof.dr.ir. Wil van der Aalst
www.processmining.org

Overview
Chapter 1
Introduction

Part I: Preliminaries
Chapter 2
Process Modeling and
Analysis

Chapter 3
Data Mining

Part II: From Event Logs to Process Models

Chapter 4
Getting the Data

Chapter 5
Process Discovery: An
Introduction

Chapter 6
Advanced Process
Discovery Techniques

Part III: Beyond Process Discovery

Chapter 7
Conformance
Checking

Chapter 8
Mining Additional
Perspectives

Chapter 9
Operational Support

Part IV: Putting Process Mining to Work

Chapter 10
Tool Support

Chapter 11
Analyzing Lasagna
Processes

Chapter 12
Analyzing Spaghetti
Processes

Part V: Reflection
Chapter 13
Cartography and
Navigation

Chapter 14
Epilogue
PAGE 1

Business process maps

The first geographical maps date back

to the 7th Millennium BC. Since then
cartographers have improved their
skills and techniques to create maps
thereby addressing problems such as
clearly representing desired traits,
eliminating irrelevant details, reducing
complexity, and improving
PAGE 2
understandability.

Example of a map

Road map of The

Netherlands. The map
abstracts from smaller
cities and less significant
roads; only the bigger
cities, highways, and
other important roads are
shown. Moreover, cities
aggregate local roads
and local districts. Also
not use of color, size, etc.

PAGE 3

A
Need
for trip
has arisen

E
C

Entry
of a
travel
request

Trip
is requested

Approval
of travel
request

Planned
trip
is rejected

Planned
trip
is approved

Need
to correct
planned
trip
is transmitted

Advance
payment

Trip
advance
is transmitted/
paid

Unrequested
trip
has taken
place

Approved
trip
has taken
place

Entry
of trip
facts
Trip
facts
and receipts
have
been released for checking

Approval
of trip
facts

Planned
trip
must
be canceled

Trip
expenses
reimbursement
is rejected

Trip
facts
are released
for accounting

Approval
of trip
facts
is transmitted

Accounting
date
is reached

Travel
Expenses

Trip
expenses
reimbursement
must
be canceled

Payment
amount
transmitted
to bank/
payee

Trip
costs
must
be included
in cost accounting

Payments
must
be released

Payment
must
be effected

Amounts
relevant
to accounting
transmitted
to payroll accounting

Amounts
liable
to employment
tax transmitted
to payroll

Trip
costs
statement
is transmitted

Cancellation

Trip
is canceled

Trip
costs
cancelation
statement
is transmitted

PAGE 4

More significant nodes

are emphasized

Highlights more
important paths

PAGE 5

More to learn from maps...

Aggregation

Abstraction

Clustering of coherent,
less significant structures

Removing isolated, less

significant structures

PAGE 6

Illustrating the problem

x
start

y
1.0

1.0

j
p9

p3
p1

p12

p7
0.3

0.4

0.4

0.6

0.6

0.3

0.4

0.3
p2

1.0

0.4

0.6
c

1.0

0.3

g
p4

p5

0.4

0.6
p8

0.4
k

p10

p11

1.0

p6
end
PAGE 7

Classical top level view:

low level connections still exist

p3
p9
p4

z
p10

p5
p11
x

p6

start

y
1.0

1.0

p3

p9

p1

p12

p7

0.4

0.3

0.4

0.6

0.6

0.3

0.4

0.3
p2

1.0

0.4

0.4

0.6
c

1.0

0.3

p4

p5

0.6

0.4
p8

p10

p11

1.0

p6
end

PAGE 8

Seamless zoom
Threshold: 1.0

z
j

Threshold: 0.6

z
j

Threshold: 0.4

z
j

Threshold: 0.3

z
j

PAGE 9

Example: Reviewing papers

(100 cases generating 3730 events)

WF-net discovered
using the -algorithm
PAGE 10

Fuzzy miner:
two views on the same process
fuzzy model showing
all activities

fuzzy model
showing only
two activities

color and
width of arc
indicates
significance
of connection

PAGE 11

Balancing between both extremes

fuzzy model showing
all activities

fuzzy model
showing only
two activities

color and
width of arc
indicates
significance
of connection

aggregated node
containing 10 activities

inner structure of
aggregated node

PAGE 12

Not a single map!

PAGE 13

Projecting dynamic information on

business process maps

PAGE 14

Projecting traffic jams on maps

PAGE 15

Business process movies

PAGE 16

Navigation
Whereas a TomTom device is continuously showing
the expected arrival time, users of todays
information systems are often left clueless about
likely outcomes of the cases they are working on.
Car navigation systems provide directions and
guidance without controlling the driver. The driver is
still in control, but, given a goal (e.g. to get from A to
B as fast as possible), the navigation system
recommends the next action to be taken.
Operational support provides TomTom functionality
for business processes.

PAGE 17

Recommend: How to get home ASAP? Take a left turn!

Detect: You drive too fast!

Predict: When will I be home? At 11.26!

PAGE 18

Relating the process mining framework

to cartography and navigation
people
machines

business
processes

world

organizations

documents

information system(s)
provenance

event logs
current
data

historic
data

cartography
discover

enhance

promote

compare

check

detect

recommend

auditing
predict

explore

navigation

post
mortem

diagnose

pre
mortem

models
de jure models

de facto models

control-flow

control-flow

data/rules

data/rules

resources/
organization

resources/
organization
PAGE 19