Primary Path View
Overview
Primary path view is the new type of graphical representation of the process generated by the program and based on the actual project dataset involving all sorts of filters applied. It is designed to show the most frequent and common flow of events and gives a possibility to find deviations from it and analyze such deviations. The schema is enhanced with powerful tools to examine process aspects from different angles.
Structure and settings
Primary path is a graph, displaying the most common event sequence in a process. Combined with other Timeline tools, it serves as a starting point for the analysis of the most significant patterns.
Being a graph, it consists of nodes, that represent events that occurred in timelines, and connections between them.
For Primary path view graph creation, Timeline mostly relies on Path analysis. The deviations represent up to the 50 most common paths of timelines in the project brought together on a graph. As the graph is built on the Paths, it represents the Top 1 path. Increasing the Top value will add the next paths from their sequence, which can be seen in the Path analysis module. This sequence is regulated by the selected metric and sorting order.
You can change the number of deviations displayed to see how the graph is restructured according to the number of deviations shown. The Top 1 path is always visible since its transitions (arrows between nodes) are colored orange and have a step number on them. Arrows colored differently are transitions belonging to deviations. The numbers near the nodes indicate the number of events related to the node and are measured according to the chosen Top range and the selected metric.
The graph display and content can be adjusted with the respective settings:
Content settings
The graph controls are placed on a separate bar below it:
- Primary path is displayed when the slider is in the Top 1 position. To change the number of deviations displayed move the slider or press the "+" and "-" buttons.
- You can select the display of the graph based on a metric. Switching between metrics restructures the graph. The following metrics are available:
- Count of timelines
Number of timelines matching the paths, considered on the graph. - Average duration
Average process duration of timelines in the path(s).
Note. All the metrics are counted according to the considered number of paths on the graph. - Switch between Sort by ascending and Sort by descending options to alter the sorting of the paths, considered on the graph.
Display settings
Adjust the graph to your screen with the help of the display buttons in the left upper corner: zoom in 
, zoom out 
, center 
.
Primary path and filtering
This graph has a strong dependence on filters. You can filter your current timeline set by the Primary path configuration, or you can use Selections on the Board side as local filters applied to the graph's structure.
Applying Primary path as a filter
The outstanding advantage of this feature is that the graph is a filter itself. It has a separate Apply button on the graph side.
- Apply
By clicking the Apply button, the current timeline set will be filtered by Path. The filter parameters depend on the number of deviations displayed on the graph: the fewer deviations are shown, the narrower the filter is.
Note. Primary path view gathers the 50 most common paths of timelines in the project, which means that the timelines not included in these paths are not considered on the graph. As the result, the Primary path graph displaying the maximum of Top 50 paths, when applied as a filter, can still decrease the number of timelines in the current set. - Discover
Click Current at the Top of the Timeline workspace to see the applied filters. Here you can check the parameters of filters applied to the current set. - Reverse
You can change the filtering condition by clicking
in Current pane > Filters window. By default, applying a filter keeps only those timelines in the current set, that meet a certain condition. Clicking this button does the opposite, which means that it keeps only those, that violate this condition. This is utterly convenient, for example, if you believe that Primary path is the reference scenario, and you want to take a closer look at the deviations from it. - Remove
As with any other timeline set filter, the one of Primary path can be canceled only from the filters' list, opened by clicking Current. - Delete specific entries by clicking
. - Remove all from the current set by clicking Clear all filters.
Filtering Primary path
Since Primary path view is generated by the program, it has only some options on its own. Tiles on Board complement the graph's functionality by adding the ability to filter and display various metrics for the selected data. Board allows investigating deeper into what is inside the selected paths.
Tiles have interactive elements, clicking them is treated as a filter immediately applied to the graph and impacts its structure. Data table lines, bars of a Bar chart, and Pie chart slices can be applied as dimension filters. By clicking one of these elements, you choose an attribute with a certain value that must be present in all timelines. Therefore, only the timelines meeting this condition are considered when generating Primary path view.
Primary path view and Boards are co-dependent. When the View structure changes, the metrics are recalculated on Board, and vice versa. When a value on a Tile is selected, it is treated as a dimension filter, which forces the metrics and all the graph paths to be recalculated accordingly. At the same time, the graph is always restructured under the current timeline set, and according to all the general filtering tools like Query or Dimensions applied. This co-dependence allows you to perform experiments to find out the effect of certain dimension values on the deviations.
For more details on boards, see Board.
9/5/2024 4:23:54 PM