Variants
Process variants allow for the exploration of all possibilities of how a process can develop. Each variant is a unique sequence of activities that represent the path of a case passing through a process. The list of variants represents the combination of these sequences. By default, the first variant in the list is the path that occurs most often.
By only using the number of variants as a KPI, you could assess that a process with a lower number of variants likely indicates less irregularity and is therefore a more standardized process with increased efficiency. However, a high number of variants would indicate a process that's more likely optimized by analyzing the different variants.
By analyzing the variants, you can identify problematic scenarios and the most frequent scenarios that occur in the process. By carefully examining process variants and filtering them, you can restrict the analyzed process to only those parts or scenarios that are of interest for achieving the final objective of the analysis.
From the Variants module, you can review the list of variants sorted on the highest case count. The list shows the steps of the most common process with the number of events and case percentages. Each step is color-coded with an abbreviation of the name, and it corresponds to the legend on the right that contains the full name.
You can sort the variants by Event Count, Performance, or Finance by selecting the ellipsis (...) menu. Finance only shows if your process data contains a finance attribute with data.
Take a few minutes to explore the options on your own in one of your processes.
The system generates the default view by using activities, but you can change it to resource or attributes. Select the Attribute dropdown menu and then select Resource. The variants should now show by resource.
When you select a specific variant, you get more detail on the variant overview. You also get specific cases for each variant in the Cases table, and you can review the development of a case in a timeline on the Cases gantt tab.
Analyzing the variants of a process can be helpful in reviewing the similarities, differences, and repeated patterns that you observe in the sequences of steps for a process.