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Single Report

Reports provide you with the ability to view your data from different angles and thus capture all aspects that influence your process, show new trends or depict your current business state.

Each report consists of the edit mode and the view mode to perform different kinds of actions on it.

To create a new process report, click the “Create New” button on the Homepage or Collection page and select the “New Report - Process Report” option. This opens a dialog where you can set the report name, which process to create the report for and select one of multiple report templates. You can later change all these settings in the report edit mode.

Creating a new Report based on a template

Edit Mode

The edit mode allows you to configure the report and adjust it to your needs. Therefore, you can perform all kinds of changing operations such as

rename your report
build a report
configure your report
save the current state with your applied changes
cancel changes you already applied to the report

Report actions to perform in edit mode in Camunda Optimize

Building a report is the crux of the report edit mode. The building process itself is composed of several steps, which happen in the control panel.

Select a Process Definition

Every report relates to a specific process definition and version. You always need to choose a process definition you want to create a report for. If you open the process definition popover, you see two select items displayed. On the left one you can choose the process definition name and on the right item the version. Independent from all other configuration options you can always adjust the process definition. If there are a lot of process definitions, you can use the input field to search for the definition you are looking for.

Process definition selection in the report builder in Camunda Optimize

After selecting a process definition, you can select a specific version or version range. Using the version popover, you can choose between all versions, the latest version or a specific set of versions.

Process Version selection in the report builder in Camunda Optimize

If you select the “All” option, every process instance across all verisons of the process definition will be considered in your report. Using the “Always display latest” option makes your report always refer to the latest version. Keep in mind that if a new version of the process is deployed, the report will automatically consider process instances of this new version only. By using the “Specific version” option you can specify one or multiple existing versions of the process.

Data from older versions is mapped to the most recent version in the selection. Therefore, the report data can seem to be inconsistent, which is due to changes that occurred within the diagram through the different versions, e.g. old version do not contain newly added tasks or a part of the diagram was removed because it was considered to be obsolete.

If you are running a multi-tenancy setup, for processes that can have more than one tenant, there is an additional tenant selection component. This allows you to specify which tenant’s data is included in the report.

Process definition selection for a multi-tenancy scenario

By default, all process instances for the selected process definition are included in a report. You can reduce this set of process instances by applying a filter. Read more about filters in the Filter section

Define the Report

In this section of the report builder you are characterizing the output of the report. Basically, you are writing the following “I want to view … grouped by … visualized as …”. To understand better what view and group by mean, you can use the analogy of a graph, where view is the y-axis and group by is the x-axis. First you need to select, which part of the data you want to view. Optimize enables you to perform the view part in the following ways:

Raw Data: View just a table with the actual data listed as rows. This can come in handy if you found interesting insights in certains process instances and need detailed information about those instances or you are exploring a process definition with a limited number of instances. The maximum number of rows shown in the table is limited to 1000.
Process Instance
- Count: View how many process instances were executed.
- Duration: View how long the process instances took to complete.
Incident
- Count: View how many incidents occurred on the process.
- Resolution Duration: View how long the incident took to get resolved.
Flow Node
- Count: View how often the flow nodes (e.g. tasks, gateways, etc.) have been executed.
- Duration: View how long each flow node (e.g. task, gateway, etc.) took to complete.
User Task
- Count: View how often each user task has been executed.
- Duration: View how long each user task took to complete
Variable: View an aggregation of values for a specific numeric variable of the process definition

For duration and variable views there is the possibility to select between different aggregation types.

Subsequently, you need to define how to group the data. Think of it as applying a metric to your input, where you break up the data by date, flow nodes, variable values or other properties. For that, you have different options:

None: Don’t split up the data by any means and just use the total number.
Flow Nodes: Cluster the data by flow nodes.
User Tasks: Cluster the data by user tasks.
Duration: Cluster the data by their duration. Depending on the selected view, this can be the duration of process instances, flow nodes or user tasks.
Start Date: Group instances together that were started during the same date period or time, e.g. hour, day or month. Depending on the selected view, this can be the start date of process instances, flow nodes or user tasks.
End Date: Group instances together that were finished during the same date period or time, e.g. hour, day or month. Depending on the selected view, this can be the start date of process instances, flow nodes or user tasks.
Running Date of the Process Instance: Group process instances together that were running during the same date period or time, e.g. hour, day or month.
Variable: Process instances with the same value for the selected variable are grouped together.
Assignee: Only available for User Task views. Tasks with the same Assignee are grouped together.
Candidate Group: Only available for User Task views. Tasks with the same Candidate Group are grouped together.

Finally, you just need to define how you want the data to be visualized. Examples are heatmap, table, bar or line chart.

Throughout the definition of the report it might be hard to find out which combinations are valid. For this reason you get assisted during the building process such that only those configuration options are enabled that might lead to a result. For instance, if you choose Flow Node: Count as view, the data is automatically grouped by Flow Nodes as no other combination would be valid. All possible combinations can also be found in the following table:

View	Group By	Visualize as
Raw Data	None	Table
Process Instance: Count, Process Instance: Duration	None	Number
Process Instance: Count	Start Date, End Date, Running Date, Variable, Duration	Table, Chart
Process Instance: Duration	Start Date, End Date, Variable	Table, Chart
Incident: Count, Incident Duration	None	Number
Incident: Count, Incident Duration	Flow Nodes	Table, Chart, Heatmap
Flow Node: Count, Flow Node: Duration	Flow Nodes	Table, Chart, Heatmap
Flow Node: Count	Start Date, End Date, Duration	Table, Chart
Flow Node: Duration	Start Date, End Date	Table, Chart
User Task: Count, User Task: Duration	User Tasks	Table, Chart, Heatmap
User Task: Count, User Task: Duration	Start Date, End Date, Assignee, Candidate Group	Table, Chart
User Task: Count	Duration	Table, Chart
Variable	None	Number

Heads Up!

Please note that you might sometimes see a warning message indicating that the data is limited to a certain number of points. This happens because the available stored data, in this case, is very large and it is not possible to display all the data in the selected visualization.

Target Value Comparison

Based on flow node duration heatmaps, Optimize allows you to specify a target value for every activity. For example, if a user task has to be completed within one day, you can set the target value to one day. If the time it takes to complete the user task exceeds this target value, the task is highlighted in the heatmap.

To set target values and create a target value comparison heatmap, you need to be in the edit mode of a report which has the following configuration:

View	Flow Node Duration/User Task Duration
Group by	Flow Nodes/User Tasks
Visualize as	Heatmap

If your report has this configuration, a target value button is visible. Clicking on the Target Value button for the first time opens an overlay containing the process diagram and a table with all flow nodes. You can also see the actual duration value for every flow node. If you want to set a target value for a flow node, use the number and unit fields in the last column. If the target value number field for a flow node is empty, this flow node has no target value set (the selected time unit is ignored in that case).

If you set a target value for a flow node, this target value is represented as a badge on the flow node in the diagram in the upper part of the overlay. You can click on any flow node in the diagram to jump to the target value input field in the table. If you have a user task report, you can only select user tasks here, as only those are included in the report result. When selecting a target value input field in the table, the corresponding diagram element is highlighted. To save the target value configuration, click the Apply button.

If you saved the target values, the normal duration heatmap is replaced with a target value visualization. In this new visualization, flow nodes with an average duration larger than the specified target value are highlighted in red.

If you mouse over one of the nodes the tooltip shows the following:

The target duration value
The actual duration
The relative percentage the actual value is of the target value
A button to download a list of process instance ids that exceed the target value

You can also see the target value as a badge on the diagram.

After the initial target values for a report are set, you can use the Target Value button to toggle between the Target Value and the regular Duration view mode. If you want to change target values, you can use the gear button to open the overlay again.

As with any change to a report configuration, in order to persist target values and show them in the Report view mode and on Dashboards, you need to save the report using the Save button in the upper right corner.

Process Instance Parts

In some cases you are not interested in the duration of the whole process instance, but only a certain part of it. For that scenario, there is an additional button called “Process Instance Part” available for every Process Instance Duration view. Clicking this button opens an overlay letting you select the start and end of the part of the process instance you are interested in. After confirming the selection, the displayed duration refers to the selected part only instead of the whole instance.

In some cases it can happen that the same activity is executed multiple times in the same process instance, e.g. if the process contains loops or parallel gateways. In such cases, Optimize considers only the part between the start date of the first instance of the start node and the end date of the first instance of the end node.

Configure a Report

The configuration panel groups all the settings that can be applied to a report in one place. To see the panel click on the cog button available in the edit mode of any report. Every visualization has different settings the can be configured from the panel.

Changes to a report configuration are persisted and also apply to the report view mode and any dashboard this report is displayed on.

Number

Number reports are any report that is visualized as a single number (e.g. Process Instance: Count grouped by None or Process Instance: Duration Grouped by None).

In number reports, the following configurations are possible:

Number Precision

Number precision can be configured from the panel to limit the most significant units to be shown.

For example, we have a report that calculates the total process instances duration. When the precision limit is not set, you will see all possible units, e.g.: 1y 5m 2wk 5d 3h 16min 3s 170ms. In case you are only interested in certain units - for instances months - you can omit all insignificant units by limiting the precision as shown in the figure below:

Number Goal Value (Progress bar)

Number reports appear as progress bar when the goal option is enabled from the panel as shown. The baseline and the target value of the progress bar can be also set using the panel.

You can toggle between the progress bar and the single number visualization using the same goal line switch.

A red line indicator appears on the progress bar when its value exceeds the goal value. After the indicator, the bar turns into a darker color to clearly show the exceeded amount.

Duration and Variable Report Aggregation

For duration and variable views the default aggregation type is the average. In order to change that, you can select between different aggregations like minimum, maximum and median in the report configuration panel. Please note that the median is an estimate and the other operations are exact values.

User Task Duration Time

In User Task duration reports, you have the opportunity to select which part of the user tasks lifecycle you want to see in the report:

Idle: View how long each user task was considered idle (Not claimed by an assignee/user) during it’s execution.
Work: View how long each user task was considered to be worked on by assignees/users (time of first claim till finished) during it’s execution.
Total: View how long each user task took to complete.

Table settings

In Table reports, the following configuration are possible:

Show instance count

Displays the total instance count on the right side of the visualization. If you save the report while this option is enabled, the number will also be shown on any dashboard this report is added to and when the report is shared.

Hide, show and reorder table columns

The table settings allow you to hide specific columns using the configuration menu as shown in the figure below:

When working with raw data table reports, you can also re-order the table columns using drag-and-drop on the header of the respective column.

Sorting by table column

To sort a table by a specific column, simply click on the header of that column. Doing that will show a line on the header indicating which column the table is currently sorted by and the direction of this sorting (ascending or descending) as shown:

Clicking again on the same column header will reverse the direction of sorting.

Saving the reports will also preserve the applied sorting.

The sorting currently works for all table reports except for:

Combined table reports
Reports grouped by integer type variable

Absolute and Relative Values

When configuring a count report, you have the opportunity to configure which columns are included in the table. Using the switches for absolute and relative value you can hide or show the corresponding columns.

Custom Bucket Size for Date Variables

When evaluating a report which is grouped by a date variable and displayed as a table, Optimize offers you the option to select your preferred unit specifying the custom result bucket size from the report configuration menu. The avaiblable units are year, month, week, day and automatic. The default unit is automatic, which will create evenly spaced result buckets based on the values of the date variable. This configuration option is also available for charts.

Custom Bucket Size and Baseline

When evaluating a report which is grouped by duration or a number variable, Optimize offers you the option to specify your preferred result bucket size as well as a custom baseline in the report configuration menu. The bucket size determines the width of one bucket, and the baseline specifies the start of the first bucket.
For example, say a report contains the variable values 0.3, 6 and 13 and you set a bucket size of 5. By default, Optimize would now return a bucket for the values 0.3 to 5.3, one for 5.3 to 10.3 and one for 10.3 to 15.3. You may prefer your bucket start and end points to be a round number, in which case you should set your baseline to 0. With a baseline of 0 and bucket size 5, the result buckets now span 0 to 5, 5 to 10 and 10 to 15. If these configuration fields are not set, Optimize will by default create evenly spaced result buckets with a range based on the minimum and maximum values of the number variable.
This configuration option is also available for charts.

Charts (Line, Bar, Pie)

In bar chart and line chart reports, it is possible to select the color of the graph, add names to the x-axis and y-axis, and edit many other settings as shown in the figure below:

In charts, you can hide/show absolute and relative values that appear in the tooltips.