Start a root cause analysis

You can use the Root Cause Miner widget to do a root cause analysis.

Technically, a root cause is a dimension value that affects a symptom observed in the dashboard. The root causes are divided into two categories: Root causes that have a promoting effect and root causes that have an inhibiting effect on the observed symptom.

Currently the Root Cause Miner widget only supports process filters as symptoms. Symptoms that are based on a process-by-detail filter or on a filter at function or relation level are not selectable in the Root Cause Miner widget. They are listed at the end of the symptom list. These filters cannot be selected, but are taken into account when data is calculated and retrieved from PPM. For process-by-detail filters, multiple values are linked with the AND operator instead with the OR operator, as is the case with other filters.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Open a dashboard in the dashboard editor.
  2. Insert a Root Cause Miner widget in the dashboard.
  3. Specify the widget settings.

    Only basic settings are available for the Root Cause Miner widget. The Assign data Assign data and filter Filter options are not available. To enable the translate Translate option, you must add a further language to the dashboard. For details on how to add a language, see the MashZone NextGen online help.

  4. Click View dashboard to open the dashboard in view mode.
  5. Click New on the Root Cause Miner widget to start a new root cause mining. The New option is available if a Process Mining context has been configured and the filter panel is enabled.

    The opened dialog shows all Process Mining context related filters that are set in the dashboard, either in dashboard widgets or in the filter panel.

  6. Select the filter for the symptom that you want to analyze. You can select only one filter from the list.

    You must have specified at least one filter in your analysis, otherwise the filter list is empty.

  7. If you only want to view process instances that are above a certain threshold value, you can hide results that only occur in a small number of processes and that are of less interest. Root causes that cover more processes are potentially more interesting than those that cover only a few.

    Click Show options and enter a threshold value in the Ignore results that occur in fewer instances than input box. Root causes found in fewer than the set threshold are ignored in the analysis.

  8. Click Start to start the data request to PPM.

    The Start option is only available if a filter is selected and the entered threshold value is in the correct format.

    After you started the root cause analysis, the widget sends an analysis request to PPM. You can cancel the running request by clicking Abort.

After the request has finished, the Result option is enabled.

The Root Cause Miner widget stores your settings as an internal bookmark. These settings are the starting point for your further analyses. You can view the result and perform further analyses.

Example

Root Cause Miner