Viara Popova and Marlon Dumas

University of Tartu

Discovering Synchronization Conditions in Artifact-Centric Process Models

Artifact Model Discovery Tool

Raw Log (text or DB)

Discover Artifact Types & Associations

Extract Artifact Logs

Discover GSM per Artifact

Discover Intra-Artifact

Conditions

Discover Synchronizat

ion Conditions

GSM Artifact Model

BizArtifact (Barcelona)

2

Raw Logs

2008-12-09T08:20:01.527+01:00 Received_order 245BG „Metallica” „Dead Magnetic”2008-12-09T20:11:15.342+01:00 Received_order 246BL „Ray Baretto” „Acid”2008-12-10T08:22:01.427+01:00 Sent_quote 245BG2008-12-10T08:30:01.427+01:00 Sent_quote 246BL2008-12-11T11:20:14.534+01:00 Accepted_quote 246BL...

TimestampEvent type

Data attribute

Data attribute Data attribute

3

Raw Logs Artifact Logs

1. Discover entities Functional dependencies primary keys

2. Discover relationships Inclusion dependencies foreign keys,

multiplicities

3. Discover artifact types

4. Extract logs of each artifact

4

Artifact Lifecycle

s(GSMs)

Process mining techniques

Discovered GSMMaterial Order (MO)

t1: Create

MO

on create t1 complete

t2: Send MOto supplier

on t1 complete

t2 complete

t3: Receivesuppl. response

on t2 complete

t3 complete

t4: Receiveitems

on t3 complete on t4

complete

t5: Receiveinvoice

on t3 complete

t5 complete

t6: Reassignsupplier

on t3 complete

t6 complete

t7: CloseMO

on t4 completeand t5 complete

t7 complete

5One artifact, pure control-flow

GSM Discovery Tool Chain

Raw Log (text or DB)

Discover Artifact Types & Associations

Extract Artifact Logs

Discover GSM per Artifact

Discover Intra-Artifact

Conditions

Discover Synchronizat

ion Conditions

GSM Artifact Model

6

Composition of guard sentries

A guard sentry includes:1. Intra-artifact data conditions

“weight > 100”, “response = positive”

Discovered using ProM decision miner or BranchMiner

2. Inter-artifact synch conditions

7

GSM with intra-artifact conditions (MO)

t1: Create

MO

on create t1 complete

t2: Send MOto supplier

on t1 complete

t2 complete

t3: Receivesuppl. response

on t2 complete

t3 complete

t4: Receiveitems

on t3 complete &positive response

on t4 complete

t5: Receiveinvoiceon t3 complete

& positive response

t5 complete

t6: Reassignsupplier

on t3 complete &negative response

t6 complete

t7: CloseMO

on t4 completeand t5 complete

t7 complete

8

Inter-artifact synch conditions

Points of synchronization between artifacts: the transition to a new state of one artifact is triggered by the states of related instances of another artifactPaper can only be evaluated when at least three reviews are completed.Meeting can only be confirmed when at least half of the members have confirmed participation.

Akin to completion conditions in BPMN multi-instance activities

9

Synch condition discovery

10

Primaryartifact

Secondaryartifact

Synch condition discovery (cont.)

Score conditions to find the “most likely” ones

Find synch conditions using classification (decision trees)

Find probable synch points – which stages/activities need synchronization

conditions?

11

Synch condition discovery

12

Primaryartifact

Secondaryartifact

Find synchronization points

Heuristic to find probable points: Activity level of S – average number of events

in secondary artifact happening immediately before S

A B C D E S F G D S

2 1The higher the activity level the more likely S is a synchronization point

13

Find conditions for point S

For each execution of S: a snapshot of the current states in the related instances

Feature vector: For each event type T in secondary artifact: how

many instances were in state T (T last executed) when S was executed

Positive examples: one vector per execution of S Negative examples: one vector per execution of

other event in main artifact + one vector per execution of an event in secondary artifact

A B C D E S F G D SS: positive examples: (B:0,D:1,E:1)(B:0,D:1,E:0)

14

Find conditions for point S

Refinements: Remove redundant samples Balance number of positive and negative

examples

Decision tree synch conditions

Scoring each condition: Quality of decision tree – F-measure Size of decision tree (normalized) Activity level (normalized)

15

GSM with synch conditions (PO)

t1: Record

PO

on create t1 complete

t2: Analyze PO

on t1 complete

t2 complete

t3: Generate MOs

on t2 complete

t3 complete

t4: AssembleProduct

on t3 complete & all MOs fulfilled

on t4 complete

t5: Receivepayment

on t3 complete

t5 complete

t6: Notifycustomer

on t3 complete & MOs unfulfilled

t6 complete

t7: ClosePO

on t4 completeand t5 complete

t7 complete

16

ArtifactMiner – Implementation

discovery(reverse-

engineering)

Artifact model

repair

conformance /A

B

A

C

A

B

Artifact logs

raw event log

DB

Artifact Types

Guards(OCL)

Artifact Lifecycle (GSM)

ProM

ProMProM

ProM Importer

ProM

17

Evaluation

Synthetic logs (x 2 sample processes) All sync conditions found

FRIS log Flemish applied research funding agency TBM Funding Program (biomedical research

grants) Extracted from existing Sharepoint system (one

funding call, 2 artifact types, 200+ events) Correctly discovered artifacts + control-flow Discovered 4 relevant synchronization conditions

No missing condition (given the available data)

18

Looking Ahead

Exciting case studies TU/e + KPMG Extracting artifact models from ERP systems

(e.g. SAP, Oracle)

Discovering BPMN models with multi-instance activities & synchronization conditions

19

QUESTIONS?

Research funded by EU’s FP7 Programme (ACSI Project)

Drag picture to placeholder or click icon to add

20