This post is part of the Process Mining Use Case Series where we’ll focus on different techniques to identify process inefficiencies, non-conformant activities, and improvement opportunities. These posts will be broken into two sections – how to do the analysis and how to configure the Process Mining project.
Let’s face it no one likes to sit “On Hold”. Just the term “On Hold” has me thinking about background music with occasional reminders about how important my call is.
From a service delivery perspective putting a piece of work (IT incident, Customer Service, etc.) into an On Hold state can have both positive and negative impacts. On the positive side, it allows the support team to temporarily prioritize and address more urgent issues, potentially improving overall response times for critical matters. However, it can also lead to negative consequences as customers may perceive it as a delay in resolution, causing frustration and dissatisfaction. Effective communication with the customer about the reason for placing the case on hold and providing realistic expectations for resolution is crucial to mitigate these negative effects and maintain good customer relations.
Process Mining can help organizations get a visibility into their process flows and provide an understanding of the bottlenecks so they can reduce the frequency and duration of work in the "On Hold" state.
How to do the analysis
This approach can be applied to any workflow that has an “On Hold Reason”. (Incident, Customer Service Case, etc.).
Process Mining will allow us to use the “On Hold Reason” field in our analysis. This field is typically not available to us for after the fact reporting and analytics because it doesn’t persist when the work is closed.
Using “On Hold Reason” as an Activity in your Process Mining project gives you the flexibility to do several different types of analysis.
Process Map showing State transitions and On Hold Reasons
For example:
- How long are tickets “awaiting vendor” input and do we have situations where we need to back to the vender more than once?
- Which types of tickets are “awaiting caller info” and which channels are generating those situations more often?
- How many incidents were “awaiting change” and what was the impact on overall resolution time?
Let’s start with the Awaiting Vendor example.
*Note: Keep in mind we are working with limited demo data so the volumes and durations will seem small.
By clicking on the arc between the Awaiting Vendor On Hold Reason node and the In Progress State node we can get an understanding of how long on average tickets are sitting with the vendor before being returned to the In Progress state.
Click on arc between On Hold Reason and State to get statistics
We can also use the Incident distribution histogram to focus on situations where tickets are sitting in the Awaiting Vendor for extended periods of time.
Use the Histogram to identify and isolate long running transitions out of On Hold State
If we click on the Awaiting Vendor node directly, we can identify tickets that have had their On Hold Reason set to Awaiting Vendor more than once.
Use the Histogram to identify tickets were On Hold - Awaiting Vendor occurred more than once
Let’s switch gears to tickets that are set to On Hold with a reason of Awaiting Caller.
To get an understanding of which channels are producing the most tickets that are being set to Awaiting Caller so we can investigate improving the intake experience we can click on the Awaiting Caller node apply the transition and use our Channel breakdowns in the left-hand panel.
Use Channel Breakdown to understand which channel may be contributing more to Awaiting Caller bucket
If we wanted to look for tickets that have been on hold and flagged as Awaiting Caller for an extended period of time, we can use the transition filters capability available in the lower left-hand corner of the Process Mining Workspace.
In the Transitions screen we can configure a condition set to isolate tickets that take more than a certain amount time (in our case 2 hours) to be moved out of Awaiting Caller back into the In Progress State.
Transition Filters to isolate specific On Hold scenarios
Notice in the Incident distribution histogram we are only seeing incidents that took longer than 2 hours to be moved back into an In Progress state.
Use the Histogram to see tickets in Awaiting Caller for longer than 2 hours
You can apply any of the above techniques to any of your On Hold Reasons.
How to configure the Process Mining Project
You could use Process Mining to do a certain level of On Hold Reason analysis prior to the Vancouver release but in the Vancouver release we’ve made some enhancements to make the analysis easier.
Let’s walk through the steps to create the project used in the analysis above.
From the Process Mining Workspace click on the Create New Project button.
In the Project Definition screen give your project a Name. Maybe “On Hold Reason Project”
Click on the Submit.
In the Table Configurations related list click on the New button.
In the Table Configuration record select your table and your criteria. Your configuration will be different than mine.
Click on Submit.
Now we need to configure our Activity Definitions. This is where the magic happens and what is different in Vancouver from past versions.
In the Activity Definitions related list click on the New button.
In the Activity Definition record choose the State field. Then check the “Choose activity values” box. This is the enhancement that was made in the Vancouver release to allow you to choose specific Activity values to be used in your projects. Once the box is checked you’ll be presented with a dialog to select specific values. Choose the State values you want to include in your analysis but be sure to omit the “On Hold” State. We are going to replace the “On Hold” State values with the “On Hold Reason” values on the map.
Click Submit.
We will repeat those steps to configure an Activity Definition for the On Hold Reason.
Click on the New button in the Activity Definitions related list.
In the Activity Definition record choose “On Hold Reason” as your Field.
Check the “Choose activity values” list and then select the specific On Hold Reasons you are interested in analyzing. Note: If you don’t choose specific On Hold Reason values you will get an “Empty” node on your map which will be accurate but will make doing your analysis less streamlined.
Click on Submit.
At this point we have our Activity Definitions set and you can start to add your Breakdown Definitions.
Click on the Breakdown Definitions tab and click on the New button.
Select Channel from the Fields list and click Submit.
You can add up to 10 breakdowns per project.
Click on the “Go to Project Definition” related link.
Click on the Generate Model (Full) button.
After the mining completes. You will have a process map that will allow you to dig into your inefficiencies related to different “On Hold Reasons”
If you are looking for more in-depth training you can use the Process Mining Academy library of content
You can find other Process Mining use cases here
Additional Resources
Process Mining Essentials - Now Learning Course
