Use variants

You can use the Variants bar to identify the most frequently executed processes and critical outlier.

The following example based on a function flow diagram shows how you can use the Variants bar for your analyses. You can use the function flow diagram to analyze the sequence of activities within your business processes. This view enables you to clearly display and evaluate the process structure and the relationship between the activities.

Display Variants bar

Procedure

  1. Open the Interaction analysis realm.
  2. Display the Base tab bar.
  3. Click New.
  4. Double click the Function flow button.
  5. Specify your settings and click Finish. Select Order processing as process instances and Function cycle time (relation) as measure.

    The function flow diagram is displayed.

  6. Click the variants Variants button if the Variants bar is not already displayed.

The Variants bar is displayed with all process variants of the current analysis.

Example

Initially all existing variants of the created function flow are preselected in the Variants bar. The function flow displayed is the aggregated function flow across all variants.

variants bar

Compare process variants

Filtering one or more variants in the Variants bar enables you to compare and analyze individual process variants. The comparison of several process variants helps you to identify weaknesses and problems in your business processes.

Process variant v1 is the most frequently executed process variant and therefore probably the planned target process. You can display the v1 variant of the function flow and compare it with other process variants by using the Clipboard panel.

Procedure

  1. Click the clipboard Clipboard button to display the Clipboard panel and Clipboard tab.
  2. Click the v1 variant in the Variant bar. The filtered v1 variant of the function flow is displayed.
  3. Activate the Clipboard tab and click the add clipboard Add button. The filtered function flow is added to the clipboard.
  4. Click again the v1 variant in the Variant bar to cancel the selection.
  5. Click the v5 variant in the Variant bar. The filtered v5 variant of the function flow is displayed.
  6. Click the Add button in the Clipboard tab. The filtered function flow is added to the clipboard.
  7. Click the benchmark Benchmark button in the Clipboard tab.

Both variants are displayed in a separate window.

Example

The direct comparison shows a significant deviation of variant v5 (on the right-hand side) to variant v1 (the planed target process).

variants_compare

Based on the variants analysis, you can further extend your analyses, for example, you could perform an outlier analysis to identify the cause of the error.