The Event Tunnel: Interactive Visualization of Complex Event Streams for Business Process Pattern Analysis

Information

• Publication Type: Technical Report
• Workgroup(s)/Project(s):
  • Visualization Group
• Date: May 2007
• Number: TR-186-2-07-07
• Keywords: business process visualization, query-driven visualization, complex event processing

Abstract

Event-based systems are gaining increasing popularity for building loosely coupled and distributed systems. Since business processes are becoming more interconnected and event-driven, event-based systems fit well for supporting and monitoring business processes. In this paper, we present an event-based business intelligence tool, the Event Tunnel framework. It provides an interactive visualization of event streams to support business analysts in exploring business cases and business processes. The visualization is based on the metaphor of considering the event stream as a cylindrical tunnel, which is presented to the user from multiple perspectives. In the Event Tunnel, relevant business events are laid out and depicted for analysts. The information of single events is encoded in event glyphs that allow for a selective mapping of event attributes to colors, size and position. Different policies for the placement of the events in the tunnel as well as a clustering mechanism generate various views on historical event data. The event tunnel is able to display the relationships between events. This facilitates users to discover root causes and causal dependencies of event patterns. Our framework couples the event-tunnel visualization with query tools that allow users to search for relevant events within a data repository. Using query, filter and highlighting operations the analyst can navigate through the Event Tunnel until the required information or event patterns become visible. We demonstrate our approach with use cases from the fraud management and logistics domain.

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BibTeX

@techreport{TR-186-2-07-07,
  title =      "The Event Tunnel: Interactive Visualization of Complex Event
               Streams for Business Process Pattern Analysis",
  author =     "Martin Suntinger and Hannes Obweger and Josef Schuh and
               Eduard Gr\"{o}ller",
  year =       "2007",
  abstract =   "Event-based systems are gaining increasing popularity for
               building loosely coupled and distributed systems. Since
               business processes are becoming more interconnected and
               event-driven, event-based systems fit well for supporting
               and monitoring business processes. In this paper, we present
               an event-based business intelligence tool, the Event Tunnel
               framework. It provides an interactive visualization of event
               streams to support business analysts in exploring business
               cases and business processes. The visualization is based on
               the metaphor of considering the event stream as a
               cylindrical tunnel, which is presented to the user from
               multiple perspectives. In the Event Tunnel, relevant
               business events are laid out and depicted for analysts. The
               information of single events is encoded in event glyphs that
               allow for a selective mapping of event attributes to colors,
               size and position. Different policies for the placement of
               the events in the tunnel as well as a clustering mechanism
               generate various views on historical event data. The event
               tunnel is able to display the relationships between events.
               This facilitates users to discover root causes and causal
               dependencies of event patterns. Our framework couples the
               event-tunnel visualization with query tools that allow users
               to search for relevant events within a data repository.
               Using query, filter and highlighting operations the analyst
               can navigate through the Event Tunnel until the required
               information or event patterns become visible. We demonstrate
               our approach with use cases from the fraud management and
               logistics domain.",
  month =      may,
  number =     "TR-186-2-07-07",
  address =    "Favoritenstrasse 9-11/E193-02, A-1040 Vienna, Austria",
  institution = "Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms, Vienna
               University of Technology ",
  note =       "human contact: technical-report@cg.tuwien.ac.at",
  keywords =   "business process visualization, query-driven visualization,
               complex event processing",
  URL =        "https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2007/TR-186-2-07-07/",
}