Enabling process instance management for a BPD

In IBM® Process Portal, process owners can use the Process Performance dashboard to review the progress of processes and their instances. If the business process is enabled and process owners are authorized, they can also act on individual process instances to resolve issues, such as bottlenecks.

1. Open the BPD in Process Designer.
2. On the Overview tab, ensure that the Allow Projected Path Management option is enabled in the Advanced section.
   All process definitions that are created in Process Designer are enabled for projected path management by default. There are several routes, or paths, that can be followed to complete a process. With projected path management enabled, the projected path for an instance can be displayed on the process instance dashboard if distinct paths from the start to end nodes are found. If projected path management is not enabled, the Process Performance dashboard is affected in the following ways:

   • Instances in progress list: No estimated completion time for entries in the list
   • Set Path page: No projected path.
   • Gantt View page:
     • No future tasks
     • No estimated completion time
     • Task durations are not editable
3. Set due dates.

   Due dates are calculated from the creation time of the process instance or task. They can be set for the BPD and for individual activities. Default values are provided, but you can modify them to reflect your specific process.

   1. To set the due date for the overall BPD, go to the Overview tab for the BPD.
   2. To set the due date for individual activities, select the activity in the diagram, and specify a due date in the Implementation tab under Priority Settings.

   The updated due dates become the default due dates in Process Portal for the instances of this process. Process owners can modify the due dates of instances and tasks in the Process Performance dashboard.

4. Optional: Enable the collection of historical data in the Performance Data Warehouse.

   Historical data is used to display the traversed path and calculate the projected path for a running process instance in the Process Performance instance dashboard.

   1. On the Overview tab of the BPD, ensure that Enable tracking field is selected.
   2. On the Tracking tab, ensure that Enable Autotracking is selected.
   3. Send the updated tracking definitions to the Business Performance Data Warehouse.
   If autotracking is not enabled, the Process Performance instance dashboard is affected in the following ways:
   • Historical path information is not available for the instance.
   • The projected path through the instance is based on the longest (pessimistic) path and not the typical historical path.
5. Optional: Enable process owners to analyze the average amount of time that elapses between steps in the process.

   To enable time lapses to be analyzed, include tracking points in the process and create a timing interval to capture the time between the defined points. If tracking points are defined for the process, timing intervals are sent to the Performance Data Warehouse and the Process Performance dashboard includes timing intervals on the Overview page.