What is the Process Graph?

What is the Process Graph?

The process graph is the central visualization in ProcessMind. It shows you how cases flow through your process, from start to finish. Understanding how to read this graph is essential for effective process analysis — Process Animation replays cases over time, and the Element & Connection Menus guide explains the quick actions behind every activity and arrow.

Activities and Events

The process graph uses BPMN-like components to represent your process:

Activities (Rectangles)

Activities are the tasks or steps in your process. They appear as rounded rectangles with:

• Name: The activity label (from your data)
• Metric value: The number displayed inside or near the activity

Each activity represents something that happened in your process, for example “Order Received”, “Payment Processed”, or “Shipment Sent”.

Start Event (Circle)

The green circle on the left marks where cases begin. All cases flow from this starting point.

End Event (Circle)

The red circle on the right marks where cases complete. Cases that reach this point have finished the process.

Connections and Flow

The arrows between activities show how cases move through your process.

What Connections Represent

Each connection (arrow) represents a transition: cases that went from one activity directly to another. The connection from “Order Received” to “Payment Processed” represents all cases where those two activities happened in sequence.

Connection Colors

Connections are colored based on their metric value:

Color	Meaning
Thick/dark lines	High metric value (many cases, long time, etc.)
Thin/light lines	Low metric value (few cases, short time, etc.)

The color intensity helps you quickly spot the “highways” in your process (where most cases flow) versus the “backroads” (rare paths).

Reading the Numbers

The numbers displayed on connections depend on your selected metric:

Metric	What the Number Means
Number of events	How many times this transition occurred
Number of cases	How many unique cases took this path
Avg. transition time	Average duration between these two activities, per transition

Changing the Displayed Metric

To see different information on the process graph:

1. Find the Metric Selector in the filter panel
2. Choose the metric you want to display
3. The numbers and colors update automatically

Available Metrics

See the complete list of metrics you can display on the process graph.

Understanding Splits

When one activity leads to multiple possible next activities, you see a split in the process graph.

How ProcessMind Shows Splits

Unlike traditional BPMN diagrams that use explicit gateway symbols (diamonds), ProcessMind shows splits as multiple outgoing connections from an activity.

For example, after “Review Application”, you might see connections going to both “Approve” and “Reject”. The activity has two outgoing arrows, one pointing to each possible next step.

This is simpler to read than BPMN’s XOR gateway notation, and it directly shows the real flow from your data.

Split Percentages

When you hover over or click connections, you can see what percentage of cases took each path. For example:

• 70% of cases go from “Review Application” to “Approve”
• 30% of cases go from “Review Application” to “Reject”

These percentages help you understand the actual decision outcomes in your process.

Why No Gateway Symbols?

ProcessMind focuses on showing you what actually happened rather than modeling decision logic. The connections themselves tell the story:

• Multiple outgoing arrows = a split occurred
• Arrow thickness/color = which path is more common
• Connection metrics = exact numbers for each path

This is deliberately different from standard BPMN 2.0. In BPMN, several outgoing sequence flows from an activity are all followed, so a bare split means every path runs — an implicit parallel split. A discovered graph would read as “both happen” if it used that convention for decisions. ProcessMind therefore keeps the two apart: a choice is drawn as plain outgoing arrows, while genuine parallel execution gets an explicit AND gateway (see Parallelism and AND Gateways).

You stay in control of the model. Gateways are ordinary elements you can place freely — exclusive, parallel, inclusive, complex, and event-based gateways are all in the palette — and the discovered view never restricts what you add. Whether a split is a choice or a parallel branch is your modeling decision; the graph only reports what the data did.

This approach makes the graph easier to read while still showing all the routing information.

Parallelism and AND Gateways

Sometimes multiple activities happen at the same time (in parallel). ProcessMind shows this with special gateway symbols.

What Parallelism Looks Like

When your data shows activities happening concurrently, you’ll see an AND gateway (parallel gateway) on the graph:

The AND gateway appears as a diamond with a plus sign (+) inside. The flow splits into parallel branches, and then merges back together with another AND gateway.

How to Recognize Parallel Execution

Signs that activities run in parallel:

• AND gateway symbols appear in the graph
• Multiple branches split and merge back together
• Overlapping timestamps in the case explorer for these activities

Parallel vs. Choice

Don’t confuse parallel execution with choice:

Pattern	What It Means	How It Looks
Parallel (AND)	Both activities happen	Diamond with + sign
Choice (XOR)	One OR the other happens	Multiple arrows, no gateway

If you see multiple outgoing arrows without a gateway symbol, that’s a choice point where cases take one path or another. If you see the AND gateway, both branches execute.

Analyzing Parallel Sections

When analyzing parallel branches:

1. Check the time metrics on each branch to see which takes longer
2. The overall case duration depends on the slowest parallel branch
3. Look for imbalanced workloads where one branch consistently bottlenecks

Reading the Graph Effectively

Start with the Big Picture

1. Look for the thickest arrows to identify the main flow
2. Note where most cases go (the “happy path”)
3. Identify obvious splits where cases diverge

Zoom into Problem Areas

1. Find areas with long times or high case counts
2. Click on suspicious connections to see details
3. Use filters to isolate cases that took certain paths

Use the Process Detail Level

Complex processes can be overwhelming. The Process Detail Level control sits on the right panel, under the filters, and controls how much of the process is visible in the diagram.

As you move the slider left, less frequent elements fade out, leaving a cleaner view of the main flow:

• More detail (right): shows all activities and connections, including rare paths
• Less detail (left): shows only the most common activities and paths

Situation	Slider position
Getting an overview	Less detail (left)
Understanding the main flow	Less detail (left)
Investigating edge cases	More detail (right)
Finding all variations	More detail (right)
Presenting to stakeholders	Less detail (left)

The Process Detail Level is not the same as filtering:

• Process Detail Level hides low-frequency elements from the view but leaves the metrics unchanged.
• Filters exclude cases from the analysis, which changes every metric.

Use the detail level for visual clarity; use filters when you want to analyze a specific subset.

Compare Metrics

Switch between different metrics to understand different aspects:

• Frequency/Count: Where does the volume go?
• Time: Where do delays occur?
• Transition time: How long do cases spend between two activities?

Related topics

• Process Graph - the section overview
• Process Animation - watch your process flow in motion to spot bottlenecks and patterns
• Element & Connection Menus - what you can do when you click activities and connections
• Using Filters - focus on specific segments of your process data