Identifying events that correspond to a modified version of a process

• US 20080033995A1
• Filed: 08/02/2006
• Published: 02/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Casati, Fabio, Castellanos, Maria Guadalupe
• Application Number:
  US11/497,654
• Publication Number:
  US 20080033995A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/104.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/254 Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Events are received from at least one source. An abstract definition of a process provides a modified version of the process. In accordance with mapping information, events from the received events corresponding to the modified version of the process are identified. Data relating to execution of the process is stored into a repository, wherein the stored data is produced from the identified events.

Claims

1. A method executable in a computer, comprising:

receiving events from at least one source;

providing an abstract definition of a process to provide a modified version of the process;

in accordance with a mapping definition, identifying events from the received events that correspond to the modified version of the process; and

storing data relating to execution of the process into a repository, wherein the stored data is produced from the identified events.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing pairwise correlation of the events associated with the process; and

determining an execution set corresponding to the execution of the process, wherein the execution set includes correlated events according to the pairwise correlation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the process has plural steps, and wherein the abstract definition of the process identifies a subset of the plural steps to provide the modified version of the process, the method further comprising storing the mapping definition, wherein the mapping definition maps events to corresponding steps in the modified version of the process.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein storing the mapping definition comprises storing the mapping definition as part of the abstract definition.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the abstract definition of the process comprises providing the abstract definition of a business process that is selected from the group consisting of invoicing, shipping goods, paying bills, approving expenses, and approving purchases.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the events comprises receiving the events from plural sources.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising receiving the events into plural respective logs, wherein the logs contain events for plural steps of the process.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising extracting, from the logs, events for a subset of the plural steps identified by the abstract definition.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the process has plural steps, and wherein the abstract definition of the process identifies a subset of the plural steps to provide the modified version of the process, the method further comprising:

correlating events of the subset of steps using the mapping definition; and

loading the correlated events into an execution set.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the identified events comprise the correlated events, the method further comprising converting the correlated events in the execution set into data structures that organize the correlated events according to steps of the process.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising loading the data structures into a data warehouse, the repository comprising the data warehouse.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the events comprises receiving the events from one of a workflow engine included in the at least one source that provides an event log and a probe that monitors an information exchange of the at least one source.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the abstract definition of the process comprises providing the abstract definition having business relevant process steps abstracted from an actual process.

14. Instructions in a computer-usable storage medium that when executed cause a system to:

receive events from at least one source;

provide an abstract definition of a process having plural steps, wherein the abstract definition of the process identifies a subset of the plural steps;

in accordance with a mapping definition, identify events from the received events that correspond to the subset of steps identified by the abstract definition; and

provide the identified events in a form to enable reporting regarding the process.

15. The instructions of claim 14, wherein the mapping definition correlates events of the process by defining conditions on one or more parameters of the events.

16. The instructions of claim 15, which when executed cause the system to further:

correlate the events of the subset of the steps of the process using the mapping definition; and

load the correlated events into an execution set, the identified events comprising the correlated events.

17. The instructions of claim 15, wherein providing the identified events comprises providing the identified events for a first execution of the process, the instructions when executed causing the system to further identify events for another execution of the process.

18. A method comprising:

receiving, over a network from plural sources, events corresponding to plural steps of a business process instance;

extracting, from the received events, a subset of events corresponding to a subset of the plural steps of the business process instance, wherein the extracting is based on an abstract definition that identifies the subset of steps;

correlating the extracted events; and

generating an output according to the correlated events to enable reporting of the business process instance.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising loading the correlated events into an execution set corresponding to the business process instance, wherein generating the output is based on the execution set.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein generating the output comprises generating output tables that are related to each other using an identifier of the business process instance.