METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR IDENTIFYING WORKFLOW GRAPHS USING AN ITERATIVE ANALYSIS OF EMPIRICAL DATA

摘要

A method and system for generating a workflow graph from empirical data of a process are described. A processing system obtains data corresponding to multiple instances of a process, the process including a set of tasks, the data including information about order of occurrences of the tasks. The processing system analyzes the occurrences of the tasks to identify order constraints. The processing system partitions nodes representing tasks into subsets based upon the order constraints, wherein the subsets are sequence ordered with respect to each other such that all nodes associated with a given subset either precede or follow all nodes associated with another subset. The processing system partitions nodes representing tasks into subgroups, wherein each subgroup includes one or more nodes that occur without order constraints relative to nodes associated with other subgroups. A workflow graph representative of the process is constructed wherein nodes are connected by edges.