This is the 7th article in our case study series on auditing with process mining. The series is written by Jasmine Handler and Andreas Preslmayr from the City of Vienna. You can find an overview of all the articles in the series here.
The data transformation workflow generated a data set we could use for our process mining analysis. According to the data, between 01 January 2019 and 31 December 2019, a total of 2,550 orders with an order value of approximately 21 Mio. EUR were processed.
Initially, we had chosen the order number as our case ID. Therefore, all cases were analyzed from an order perspective (see Figure 8).
Figure 8: Order perspective (data set left, process view right)
However, during the analysis, it became clear that due to the 1:n relationship between orders and invoices, we could not answer all our analysis questions regarding invoice processing with this data set. For example, in Figure 8, one can see that two invoices (invoice 1230007 and invoice 1230008) are associated with order 1030071289-10. There are two events for activity “Check invoice” and “Make payment” (one for each invoice). This complicates answering questions such as analysis question No. 7 (“Have all invoices been checked before payment?”).
Therefore, we decided to generate a second data set focused on the invoice perspective. This was achieved by combining the order and invoice numbers into a new case ID. The scope of this second data set is smaller (invoicing and payment only). The benefit is that the activities related to invoice 1230007 and the activities related to invoice 1230008 now appear in their own case and can be analyzed separately (see Figure 9).
Figure 9: Invoice perspective (data set left, process view right)
Based on these two data sets – one from an order perspective and one from an invoicing perspective – we could now start answering our analysis questions.
Read the next article here.
Anne Rozinat
Market, customers, and everything else
Anne knows how to mine a process like no other. She has conducted a large number of process mining projects with companies such as Philips Healthcare, Océ, ASML, Philips Consumer Lifestyle, and many others.
info@fluxicon.com