Patent ID: 8619084
Filing Date: 2013-12-31
Classification: G06Q,G06T

Abstract:
1. A method for modeling a process, comprising: collecting data pertaining to executed process steps of a business process from one or more activity log files; parsing the collected data to determine a set of process steps that have been performed; identifying process threads indicative of an order of performance of the performed process steps; determining an incidence value representing how many times each performed process step follows each of the other performed process steps within each identified process thread of the collected data; generating a graph representing a model of the executed process by representing each process step that has been performed as a node of the graph and each transition between process steps within each process thread as an edge on the graph, wherein for any given pair of nodes of the graph, the edge connecting the pair of nodes is assigned a number that depends upon the incidence value corresponding to how many times the process step represented by a first node of the pair is followed by the process step represented by a second node of the pair; and making the generated graph accessible to a user, wherein each of the above steps is performed using a computer system, wherein the incidence value representing how many times each performed process step follows each of the other performed process steps within the collected data is calculated as an estimate of how likely the second node of the pair is to follow from the first node of the pair, wherein the generated graph is updated as additional data pertaining to the executed steps are added to the activity log files, wherein updating includes changes to one or more of the nodes, edges or the number assigned to the edges; and wherein the updated graph is continuously updated by automatically detecting changes to the activity log files and updating the graph using the additional data when the changes to the activity log files are detected.