SeeWhy Event Intelligence and Business Activity Monitoring 

We are sometimes asked: Is SeeWhy a Business Activity Monitoring tool? How is SeeWhy's Event Intelligence different from Business Activity Monitoring?

Business Activity Monitoring, or BAM, is a term invented by analysts Gartner Group for software that provides real time monitoring capabilities of processes modelled in Business Process Management (BPM) tools. SeeWhy certainly fits this description but it provides much more than traditional Business Activity Monitoring. Most significantly, SeeWhy is not limited to just the presentation of process data, but provides fully automated analysis and interpretation of any event data.

This extra level of automation means that you don't have to look for problems, the system detects them for you, and with then notiufy you or initiate automated corrective actions.

Simply put: if Business Activity Monitoring software allows you to monitor information, SeeWhy not only monitors it, but automatically analyzes it, and either presents you with all the information you need to act immediately or drives automatic closed-loop actions.  

Visibility vs Insight 

Business Activity Monitoring gives you visibility. Typically Business Activity Monitoring tools present data as a dashboard, so that a business process analyst can see real time indicators for the different states of the processes in the BPM tool. The analyst might notice that there are 2,000 events waiting for a particular process step or in some cases set a threshold to alert him to this condition.

SeeWhy gives you insight. SeeWhy also provides a real time dashboard based on event data, but there the similarities end. SeeWhy doesn't need an analysts to try and spot problems since the analysis is automated. SeeWhy compares normal performance with what is being observed in real time. So while 2,000 items on a queue may be a problem at 10am on the 3rd of the month, it can be quite normal for 3pm on the 27th day of the month. SeeWhy knows the difference with out you having to tell it.

This built-in analysis capability enables the software to tell you, automatically and in real time, when there are problems and opportunities are in your business. And if the system can identify these in real time, it can automate corrective actions or trigger automated marketing processes.  This ‘closed loop'  is what we call, Event Intelligent.

Beyond Business Activity Monitoring

These capabilities underline the power of SeeWhy's real time event intelligence system compared to traditional Business Activity Monitoring. After all, who wants to pay staff simply to sit and watch a needle twitch on a dial on a screen?

• No need to model business processes (but great if you already have them), making set up time very fast.
• Designed to work across multiple event streams, event types and with multiple Business Process management tools.
• Analysis is automated and real time, enabling analytics to be embedded into business processes.
• Easily configured by business users using familiar spreadsheet conditional logic making.
• Real time dashboard displays put data in context by comparing with historical patterns.
• Real time displays of ‘normal' so that you can understand what should be happening, as well as what is happening.
• Event stream processing enables complex analysis of high volume event streams in real time.
• Identifies emerging trends and individual exceptions at fine levels of granularity missed by BAM systems.
• Identifies the absence of expected events, such as an unusually low level of sales.
• Automatic dynamic thresholds accurately monitor individual customers, products, stores, applications, etc.
• Forecasts forward to predict imminent failure or targets being missed

Business Activity Monitoring Dashboards

One of the greatest perceived benefits of Business Activity Monitoring is the ability to display data on dashboards. While it is reassuring to be able to look at a dial and see that all is well with the business, it can be very misleading. Because of the volume of data, Business Activity Monitoring dashboards need to display aggregated data. Summary data like this can always hide critical detail.

Traditional BAM Dashboard

Does this dial show that all is well?

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