Creating custom process apps

You can create custom process apps in your IBM Process Mining project according you your business requirements.

Before you begin

Setup

Set up your IBM Process Mining instance for process apps in a Linux non-containerized environment. For more information, see Basic setup.

Permissions

Ensure you have the mandatory permissions to access and create process apps that a System Administrator must assign to you. For more information, see Process app permissions.

Horizontal scaling

Custom process apps are not compatible with Horizontal Scaling (High availability) in IBM Process Mining. To use a process app, you must configure it to bypass the Horizontal Scaling (High availability) default configuration. For more information, see Configuring custom process apps to bypass high availability.

Python logic file

To create a custom process app, you must create and upload a Python logic file. For more information, see Creating Python logic files for process apps.

Procedure

You must complete the following sets of steps to create a custom process app in IBM Process Mining:

  1. Create a summary card:

    1. On the Home page, click the Start from a process application tile.

    2. Click Create process app.

    3. In the Summary card section, complete the following steps:

      1. Enter the name of your process app. You cannot use the name of an already existing process app.
      2. Optional: provide a brief description of your process app.
      3. Select whether your app should be closed source or open source in order to set the permissions for the process app users:
        • Switch the toggle to Open source if you want to give the Use, View, Export, and Duplicate permissions to the process app users.
        • Switch the toggle to Closed source if you want to give only the Use and Export permissions to the process app users.
        For more information about process app permissions, see Types of users and permissions in custom process apps.

    4. Optional: Customize your process app's summary card to make it more characteristic and distinguishable from other process apps:

      1. Choose an icon.
      2. Add some feature highlights.

    5. Click Next to go to the Upload your process app logic section.

  2. Upload a logic file. To learn more about how the structure of the file should look, see Creating Python logic files for process apps.

    1. Optional: If you want your users to be able to schedule data fetching (incremental data updates) for the project they create from this process app, set the switch to Incremental updates to data can be scheduled. For this to work, your Python logic file must include a schedulable function for incremental updates to event log data. For more information, see Set the schedule setting for data refresh options.

      If the switch is set to Incremental updates to data cannot be scheduled, you can only schedule the process with replacement updates. However, you can change the schedule configuration later on in the Process app section of Data & Settings. To see how to access this section, see Process app. To learn more about scheduling options, see Scheduling process data fetching in process apps.

    2. Click Next to go to the Define user inputs section.

  3. Optional: Define user inputs. You can enable the users to input the data into your process app. This gives them the flexibility to select the data that they want to analyze and transform into a valid data source for a process mining project. You can configure the user input options in the following ways:

    • If you want your users to upload data in a file, complete the following steps:

      1. Set the Is your user required to upload a file with their own data? to Required.
      2. Click Next to go to the Provide user guidance section.

    • If you want your users to define specific parameters which the Python script uses to generate a data source according to their business requirement, do the following steps:

      1. Click Create custom input. You can add multiple custom input fields.
      2. Choose whether this user input should be mandatory or optional.
      3. Define the Label field, Variable name field and Input type fields that the users of your process app will see. In the Variable name field, insert the name of the variable that the user must enter based on the logic of the Python script. For example, Enter the Password.
      4. Optional: To instruct your users how to upload their data, add a helper text.

  4. Optional: Provide user guidance:

    Guidance with text

    Write a step-by-step guide or a description of how to use your app.

    Links to documentation and other resources

    Add links to the outside documentation or tutorials.

    Guidance with template

    Create a user guide for your process app with a JSON template.

Creating a guidance template

Before you begin, create a .zip file that contains one or both of the following:

  • If in the Defining user inputs step you required that your users upload a data file when they use your process app, provide a Python script that users can use to extract raw data from its source. Include also some technical documentation or instructions that describe how this Python script can be used to extract data from external applications.

  • If in the Defining user inputs step you created custom inputs for your users, provide technical documentation that describes how users can configure the relevant event log parameters. Users need it when they use the process app to create a project by means of connecting directly to the origin of the raw data through a REST API.

To create a guidance template, do the following steps:

  1. Click the Guidance with template button.

  2. In the Upload connector/extractor file section, upload your .zip file.

  3. Click View JSON template and copy and paste the template into the text field.

  4. Update the .JSON template with the guide details that will allow users to understand how the process app can be used to create a project.

    The following table shows the configurable values of the .JSON template:

    Value How to use it
    notification Use to highlight important notes or warnings regarding documentation.
    content Use to add a brief description of the steps required to access the documentation file or links. This description appears under the How to gather your data heading.
    content_switcher Use to provide users with two options. Example:
    • Set the show_label value to I already have my data. If the user selects this option, they only see the title, subtitle, and notification section in the UI of your process app.
    • Set the hide_label value to Help me gather my data. If the user selects this option, they see the title, subtitle and notification section, as well as the How to gather your data section with the steps defined by you in the content value, the Download button, and the FAQs section.
    download_button Use to guide users to download the file you uploaded.
    help_links Use to provide users with links to other useful resources. The links appear under the Support documentation heading.
    FAQs Use to provide users with answers to frequently asked questions about the steps.

Setting up a project

In the Process setting section, you must upload a project backup file or duplicate settings from an already existing project. You do this so that you are able to generate a new project with the process app by using the mapped data columns, project settings, filters, and dashboards from the project backup file.

To upload a project backup file, complete the following steps:

  1. Select the Upload process backup file option.

  2. Upload the project backup file in the .idp format.

  3. Save your changes

To duplicate the settings of an existing project, complete the following steps:

  1. Select the Duplicate settings from a process option.

  2. Select a project from the Find a process dropdown.

  3. Save your changes

Next steps