Business flow processing method and apparatus

Abstract

In order to identify a parallel-executed portion of processes included in a business flow, following stages are executed: obtaining transaction records including a processing time, a process type and an identifier from a database; grouping the transaction records based on the identifier and sorting the transaction records within a group based on the processing time; in case where the processing time included in the transaction record represents only one time, calculating a processing period of each transaction record based on a sequence of the processing times in the transaction records in the group; identifying a transaction record relating to a process executed in parallel based on the distribution of the calculated processing periods for each process type; and identifying, for each group, a business flow of the group based on the processing result of the identifying the transaction record and the transaction records in the group.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for causing a computer to execute a procedure comprising:
 capturing business processes, each including time information;   identifying an order of the business processes based on the time information of the captured business processes; and   displaying, on a display, a process flow diagram with information suggesting a processing time of each of said business processes, which is determined by the time information, the business flow diagram indicating the identified order of the business processes.   
     
     
         2 . A method comprising:
 capturing, by using a computer, business processes, each including time information;   identifying, by using the computer, an order of the business processes based on the time information of the captured business processes; and   displaying, on a display, by using the computer, a process flow diagram with information suggesting a processing time of each said business processes, which is determined by the time information, the business flow diagram indicating the identified order of the business processes.   
     
     
         3 . An apparatus, comprising:
 a memory; and   a processor using the memory and configured to execute a procedure comprising:   
       capturing business processes, each including time information; 
       identifying an order of the business processes based on the time information of the captured business processes; and 
       displaying, on a display, a process flow diagram with information suggesting a processing time of each said business processes, which is determined by the time information, the business flow diagram indicating the identified order of the business processes.