Understanding Task Mining projects

You can work in two different modes with IBM Task Mining and IBM Process Mining:

  1. You can link the IBM Task Mining project to an existing IBM Process Mining process (the parent) to analyze the business activities that are present in it. IBM Task Mining is used to collect user actions performed in these business activities. In the Task Mining project settings, you can associate each action to a business activity from the linked IBM Process Mining project. If you select multiple business activities, IBM Task Mining generates a IBM Process Mining project for each business activity with the naming convention: Task Mining: <business_activity_name>. You can then navigate from the parent IBM Process Mining project to each IBM Process Mining project that is created by IBM Task Mining, by selecting the business activity and clicking the Launch Task Mining project button.


    Important: Ensure that both the Task Mining project and the Process Mining process are owned by the same user. If the process is owned by a different user, use the Administration tab in IBM Process Mining to change the ownership of the process. For more information about changing ownership, see the Projects and components tab topic.


Example

IBM Task Mining creation form:

  • Task Mining project name: Ticketing
  • Organization: Task Mining Org
  • Linked process: Ticketing
  • Standalone: No
  • Enable Obfuscation & Anonymization: if required

After the first recording with the Agent, you can see the Tasks in the Task classification tab. In the Project Configuration Tab, you can assign each task to a IBM Process Mining business activity that is collected from the linked process.

In this example, Ticketing contains these activities: open ticket, wait user information, Manage GitHub Issue, resolve call and update CRM. Each IBM Task Mining task in Ticketing is assigned to one or several of these business activities as shown in the following diagram.

Integrate PM and TM example Figure 1: Task Mining project with Process Mining project.

As in the diagram, IBM Task Mining automatically creates two IBM Process Mining project named:

  • Task Mining: Manage GitHub Issue
  • Task Mining: Update CRM.

From Ticketing IBM Process Mining project, you can select these two activities and drill-down into the linked IBM Task Mining projects by using the Task-mining button.

  1. You want to start directly by creating a project on IBM Task Mining by not associating it with any IBM Process Mining process. In this case, an additional process is created on IBM Process Mining in Standalone Task Mining:
    • The process has the IBM Task Mining project name.
    • The process contains all the related business activities as events.
    • The Process ID is used to define cases (all the business activities need to share the process ID).

Example

IBM Task Mining creation form:

  • Task Mining project name: Ticketing
  • Organization: Task Mining Org
  • Linked process:
  • Standalone: Yes
  • Enable Obfuscation & Anonymization: if required

In this example, there is no pre-existing Ticketing IBM Process Mining project. Therefore, IBM Task Mining does not have any logs that are collected from IT systems.

Integrate PM and TM example2 Figure 2: Task Mining without Process Mining project.

As shown in Figure 2, IBM Task Mining creates the following IBM Process Mining projects:

  • Ticketing
  • Task Mining: Manage GitHub Issue
  • Task Mining: Update CRM

More IBM Task Mining projects can be linked to the same organization. You cannot create an organization in IBM Task Mining. You can select only an existing organization. If you need a new organization, go to IBM Process Mining and create a new process within the organization you need.

Apart from the recorded tasks and the contextual data, the processes on IBM Process Mining generated from IBM Task Mining contain the following information:

  • CASEPRODUCTIVE is the time that is spent by the user on the pages and windows that are associated with the case during the execution of the case (for example, by pressing keys or mouse buttons).
  • CASEIDLE is the time in which the user is not active on the pages and windows that are associated with the case during the execution of the case.
  • APPLICATION indicates the application on which the task is run.
  • COUNTCOPY and COUNTPASTE represent the number of copy and paste actions performed within the case.

Note : You can use the RPA Candidates feature on the business process when both the business process and task mined business activities in IBM Process Mining are present (for further clarifications, see the Dashboard section of the IBM Process Mining User Manual).

Segregation and permissions

If you have access to an administrator account (IBM Process Mining User Manual - Admin Section), you can define authorizations and permissions based on the specific requirements.

Authorizations can be assigned to a group or directly to a user. A user's permissions are determined by the union of their permission with all the permissions granted to the groups they belong to.

Authorizations can be assigned for specific resources or for resource types.

Groups

You can create, edit, and use different groups that include standard permissions to manage users of your organization. After a user is added as a member to a specific group, they are granted the group's permissions.

To add a new group, click the Add button at the bottom of the list of groups that you are managing, then choose a name and select from an existing group to Clone permissions from.

Task Mining group permission

  • Detail tab: You can edit the name of the group and view basic group details.
  • Member tab: It shows you the list of users that belong to this group. You can add or remove users from the group.
  • View Authorization tab: A consolidated view of all the authorizations that are assigned directly to the group or inherited from parent groups with details regarding the Resource type, Resource, Type, and Permissions.

Authorization

In the Authorizations menu, you can access a list of all the assigned authorizations, which are grouped by resource type.

You can create specific authorizations for Task Mining.

Task Mining authorization

Additionally, to enable Task Mining Agent for a user, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to Administration menu in IBM Process Mining.
  2. Click Edit for the user you want to enable Task Mining Agent.
  3. Click the Profile tab and select the Agent enabled checkbox.
  4. Click Save changes.

Classification:

  • Read: the user can only view the task classification performed for a IBM Task Mining project.
  • Write: the user can create or change the task classification for a IBM Task Mining project.

Decrypt

  • Read: the user can download chunks from the Audit and, using the Decrypter tool (provided at request), decrypt them for functional problem determination purposes.

Monitoring list:

  • Read: the user can download only the monitoring list from the server, in a read only mode
  • Write: the user can create or change a new monitoring list and update it to the server for all users

Obfuscation

  • Read: the user can only view the obfuscation and anonymization settings performed for a IBM Task Mining project.
  • Write: the user can create or change the obfuscation and anonymization settings for a IBM Task Mining project.

Project

  • Read: the user can only view the project configuration performed for a IBM Task Mining project.
  • Write: the user can create or change the project configuration for a IBM Task Mining project.