PAFnow Case Viewer¶
The PAFnow Case Viewer is the most important element on the Compliance Analysis Page. It shows the process step sequence of individual cases. This helps you to understand the order and characteristics of activities on the case level. You can also display additional information for each process step, such as department, costs, or number of loops.
For the older versions below 2020.8 go here.
You also have the option to color process steps based on selected attributes. For example, you can highlight all process steps that have been performed automatically by the system or those that are costliest. This makes it easier and faster to find process anomalies.
Furthermore, you can use the Case Viewer to answer compliance-related questions. For example, you can find out which process steps were carried out by which user to check whether there was a violation of duty.
This is the icon of the PAFnow Case Viewer in the visualization pane:
How to get started¶
The Case Viewer needs specific information to display the process flow of individual cases. You have to drag the necessary fields into the respective buckets.
Example
Case Identifier: The selected attribute must uniquely identify each case. (e.g. CaseId from the Event Log table)
Tip
Adding more than one identifier enables the Hierarchy function.
Order by: The selected attribute determines the order of activities. (e.g. EventNumber from the Event Log table)
Event Label: The selected attribute determines the naming of the activities. (e.g. ActivityName from the Event Log table)
How to use¶
Once you select the necessary fields for the Case Viewer, you can now start to use its different features to display and analyze the process of different cases.
Selection¶
You can also use the Case Viewer as a selection tool for further analysis:
- You can either select one or more cases
Case(s) selection
Left-click one or (via CTRL) several Case Identifiers (green-colored box on the left). These are chosen as your selection. All other cases will appear gray.
- Or select one or more activities within a case
Activity(ies) selection
Left-click one or (via CTRL) several activities (even across different cases). These are then chosen as your selection. All other activities will appear gray.
Hierarchy¶
The Hierarchy function is activated by using the drilldown-function in Power BI, see here for more information.
Drilldown/-up¶
Drilldown/-up works by pressing the drilldown-button 
or the drillup-button 
to go up or down in your hierarchy and display new information in each layer. By setting the arrow-down-option from disabled mode 
to enabled mode 
the drilldown will be enabled upon selection (see).
The process sequences are grouped by the current level in the hierarchy. Each level provides new insights into your processes based on a single attribute (e.g. country, vendor, case ID,…).
Example
Drag-and-drop the Country, Vendor Name and Case ID attributes in to the Case Identifier bucket. If you wanted to know in which country the process took place, you would set Country as the highest level. Click the Drilldown-button to go to the next level in the hierarchy and find out which vendor is assigned to which process. In the last level, you see every assigned case. Click the drillup-button when you want to go back to previous levels in the hierarchy.
Expand¶
Press the expand-button 
to create additional sequences of processes grouped by the extended Case Identifier. Clicking on the arrow-icon 
shows the lower levels and gives you more information about your processes.
Example
Following the previous example expanding displays additional information in the Case Viewer:
Swimlane¶
An extra legend in the Legend bucket extends the Case Viewer with a Swimlane Representation. Each lane describes a legend value and displays the sequence of the executed events.
Example
For example, if the Resource field is selected from the Event Log table, then all the events will color in, depending on which resource/employee ran the activity. 
To display the Swimlane Representation click on the arrow-icon
Note
The Swimlane function is activated by adding a legend. If you use the Hierarchy function at the same time, the Swimlane Representation is added at the lowest level.
Tooltip Event¶
Move the cursor over a process step to display your selected Event Attributes for the event.
Example
The tooltip shows the (Self)Loop, Sum of Cost and Resource of the Post GR event. 
Tooltip Case¶
Move the cursor over a Case Identifier (displayed on the left side) to show your selected Case Attributes for the case.
Example
The tooltip shows the First HappyPath of the case 175.
Event Labels¶
It is also possible to display a selected number of event attributes below the event name. Simply specify the number of event labels in the formatting pane.
Timeline¶
The timeline feature requires StartTime and EndTime. Both are a type of timestamp (in date time format), this timestamp can also be two separate fields with date and time that are combined in the visual as a timestamp.
The Timeline feature can be enabled/disabled by toggling the Timeline option - while the above fields are added to the corresponding area. There are two options to scale and four modes to render processes with the Timeline feature.
The default option is scaling in relation to time durations, the other option is to display the processes based on their actual timestamps.
The four following modes can be achieved either by using the Start time and End time field or toggeling the Use next Start Time option.
| Mode | Has StartTime | Has EndTime | Use next StartTime |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | x | x | |
| 2 | x | x | x |
| 3 | x | x | |
| 4 | x |
Mode 1¶
The visualization displays the events sorted by duration, and the timeline initially adopts the current maximum duration based on the visualization shown. The width of the individual elements depends on their duration.
Mode 2¶
Almost everything is the same as in mode 1, except that the events take the next "start time" as their "end time". This way you will see a continuous flow that ignores the time between process steps.
Mode 3¶
This works the same way as in Mode 2 but it replaces the End Time with the latest Start time for every element. The events will be shown as a continuous flow.
Mode 4¶
This mode can be used to find out which processes were started in parallel. Regardless of the process duration, the events are rendered depending on the size of the label.
In this case, all approval stages were carried out at the same time by the same person.
Absolute¶
There is also the possibility to show absolute values by simply enabling the mode absolute in the formatting pane under Timeline. This way the processes can be compared by their actual timestamps.
Specification¶
Required Fields¶
In order to use the Case Viewer, you have to drag the required fields into the respective buckets.
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Case Identifier | Numerical | The selected attribute must uniquely identify each case (e.g. CaseId from the EventLog table). |
| Order by | Numerical | The selected attribute determines the order of activities (e.g. EventNumber from the EventLog table). |
| Event Label | Categorical | The selected attribute determines the naming of the activities (e.g. ActivityName from the EventLog table). |
Optional Fields¶
To enhance the functions of the Case Viewer, you can drag the following optional fields to the corresponding areas.
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Legend | Categorical | Defines the attribute to use as the basis for the coloring of the individual activities/events. For example, if the Resource field is selected from the EventLog table, then all the events will color in, depending on which resource/employee ran the activity. |
| Event Attributes | Any | These are displayed as a tooltip with additional information when you hover over an event with the cursor. You can select up to ten Event Attributes. |
| Case Attributes | Any | These are displayed as a tooltip with additional information when you move the cursor to the far left of Case Name/Case Identifier. You can select up to ten Case Attributes. |
| Highlight | Numerical | Defines the intensity of the coloring of the individual activities/events. |
| Start time | Timestamp or Date & Time | This field is used to activate the Timeline feature. You can use either a single timestamp or a combination of date and time; in both cases, you should aggregate the timestamp up to the earliest time. |
| End time | Timestamp or Date & Time | This field is used to extend the Timeline feature with the correct timing. You can use either a single timestamp or a combination of date and time; in both cases, you should aggregate the timestamp up to the latest time. |
Explanation
A distinction is made between Case Attributes and Event Attributes. A Case Attribute is a characteristic that describes a case (an entire process). In contrast, an Event Attribute is a feature that describes a single activity/event of a case.
Attention
Since both Legend and Highlight determine the coloring of the process steps, the selection under Highlight will be overwritten by the Legend if you have selected attributes for both options!
Formatting¶
In the Formatting pane 
, you can modify and customize the PAFnow Case Viewer. We explain the different options below.
Legend¶
The legend is displayed when you select an attribute, such as Resource, in the corresponding field Legend. You can also switch the legend on and off.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Position | Set the position of the legend display. By default, when switched on, the legend is displayed above the Case Viewer. |
| Title | By default, the title of the legend is the name of the selected attribute. You can also turn the title on and off here. |
| Legend Name | By default, the title of the legend is the name of the selected attribute. If you want a different description of the title, you can specify it here. |
| Color | Changes the text color of the legend. |
| Text Size | Changes the font size of the legend (in points pt). |
Data colors¶
This option is displayed when you select an attribute, such as Resource, in the corresponding field Legend.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Value in Legend | Changes the color of an event with the corresponding value. |
Case¶
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Font Size | Adjust the font size in points pt. |
| Color | Set a general color for the Case Identifier box. This will also automatically set the color of the text so it always remains readable. |
| Text Hover Color | Defines the text color of the cases when hovering over a particular case. |
Event¶
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Font size | Adjust the font size in points pt. |
| Color | Set the color in which the activities/events color. This will also automatically set the color of the text so it always is readable. |
| Border color | Defines the border color of the events. |
| Low values | Color for the low values when using the highlight bucket |
| High values | Color for the high values when using the highlight bucket |
| Invert highlight | Invert the highlight colors |
| Outlier factor | When using the outlier highlight scale, you can control the factor to set outliers |
| Highlight scale | Scales the highlight for different color-mappings |
| Number of event labels | Defines the number of event names that are selected based on the selected and ordered attributes in the Event attributes field |
Timeline¶
The timeline can be switched off by the toggle button in the title.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Use next Start time | Enable this option to use target event as end time see. |
| Absolute | Enable this option to scale the timeline using the actual timestamps see. |
| Axis name | Defines the name of the timeline axis. |