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You will receive a PAFnow Template for Power BI containing the PAFnow Data Model and the PAFnow Custom Visuals depending on your purchase. The template also contains the prepared analysis and report pages.

An additional file containing the PAFnow Companion is installed to enable data transformation and display of the visuals in the PAFnow Reports. The Companion must, therefore, run in the background whenever you want to transform an event log, and should run to display the report or use the PAFnow Visuals.

Additionally the Companion can be used to activate reports with a License Key to enable the PAFnow Reports to display PAFnow Visuals independently of the PAFnow Companion(see).

So if you just want to use your pre-built and activated PAFnow Report, or you want to add your license key manually (see), you can skip the following steps.

PAFnow Companion Installation

image companion

The PAFnow Companion provides everything you need for the transformation of an event log using the PAFnow Data Model. The Companion is required to validate your license with login into your PAFnow Account.

Attention

For usage of PAFnow Reports not activated with a license key (see), the Companion must connect to the Internet frequently to do this. If there is no internet connection, you will have a window of one day after the last connection with the Companion to work with PAFnow Custom Visuals and Reports.

Unless a license key has been added to the report or PAFnow Visuals (see), the PAFnow Companion must always run in the background when you work with PAFnow Products. This includes scenarios both for working with and without internet connection.

You can download the PAFnow Companion from https://get.pafnow.com.

How to Install

image install companion

To install double-click on the setup-file (*.exe). Follow the instructions and the installation of PAFnow Companion runs automatically.

Tip

To install Companion silently from the command line, use the /S flag and to accept the conditions, add /Y. The command line might look like this:

"PAFnow Companion Setup x.x.x.exe" /S /Y

How to Start and Login

After installation the PAFnow Companion should open itself automatically or can be started from your start menu. You should now see this start screen:

Login Page

To use PAFnow and PAFnow Companion, you need a PAFnow Account with a valid license. If you do not have an account, register by clicking the Register button or visiting https://portal.pafnow.com/. These credentials will also give you access to the PAFnow Download Portal and the PAFnow Documentation.

Event Log

The templates input is always an event log with specific requirements. The three essential components of an event log are:

  1. The case identifier connecting events to a unique business case
  2. A timestamp that describes when something was done
  3. An activity name that describes which work step was performed

This can be extended with further case-based- or event-based-information. For detailed information see Event Log Specification.

Data Model

The output is a transformed EventLog-table containing event-based-information, a Cases-table with case-related information and calculated filter tables (FilterAnd and FilterOr).

The data model looks like this:

Data Model

There are two ways to get from the event log to the data model:

  1. Using the PAFnow Companion if your event log is saved as a *.csv-file
  2. Using a SQL Data Import if your event log is saved in a SQL Server (only available to PAFnow Enterprise customers)