A sub-process is a breakdown of a Process flow by using a specific dimension (or attributes). The attributes come most of the time with the optional data we had gathered in the previous stage.

Let’s take a simple example. Imagine we’re analyzing the Call Center activity and especially the way the calls are routed through the right team. If we focus on one specific call (below) we can see for example a re-routing behavior. Obviously this behavior is common in a Call Center and considered as normal. However in our case if we only look at the Process we have something which looks like the figure on the top (below). 

But from an analytic perspective we would like for example to know more about this rerouting task. For example having a better view of what has changed in the Process (who is now in charge of the call ? Why ? Did the purpose of the call change ? etc.)

This is exactly what we can analyze by breaking down per attributes the same Process Flow (here for example the Call Center division in charge has changed from “GM” to “HM – Claims Billing”). We can see these sub process in the example above with the new column of values (Process Step):