Towards a Visual Analytics Framework for Handling Complex Business Processes

Organizing data that can come from anywhere in the complex business process in a variety of types is a challenging task. To tackle the challenge, we introduce the concepts of virtual sensors and process events. In addition, a visual interface is presented in this paper to aid deploying the virtual sensors and analyzing process events information. The virtual sensors permit collection from the streams of data at any point in the process and transmission of the data in a form ready to be analyzed by the central analytics engine. Process events provide a uniform expression of data of different types in a form that can be automatically prioritized and that is readily meaningful to the users. Through the visual interface, the user can place the virtual sensors, interact with and group the process events, and delve into the details of the process at any point. The visual interface provides a multiview investigative environment for sense making and decisive action by the user.