Setting up a Task Mining project
Here’s how to get started with a new Task Mining project.
Stage 1: Create your project
From the Celonis navigation menu, select Data > Task Mining. If you see a Request Access button, Task Mining isn’t yet activated in your Celonis team. To get access, you’ll need to arrange the additional licensing fee - talk to your Celonis account team or raise a support ticket.
Click Create New Project.
Type a unique name for your Task Mining project.
Leave the project type as Workforce Productivity, unless you’ve arranged with your Celonis Value Engineer to use a legacy project, in which case select Custom.
Click Save. Task Mining sets up the new project and takes you to the project’s Home page. To find this again, from the Celonis navigation menu, select Data > Task Mining, and click your project’s tile.
Tip
If this is your first project, or you haven’t created a project in a while, you’ll see the popup “Get started with your new project”. Click Start the guide if you want to be guided through the basic project setup we describe in Stage 2.
Task Mining automatically sets up these components for your project:
The background data processing service for your captured data.
A data pool and a case-centric data model, with the default tables for a Task Mining project. We reload the data model so it displays correctly in Studio.
A storage bucket to hold captured screenshots.
An application key that any Task Mining Client instances before version 2.17.0 can use to authenticate to Celonis. From version 2.17.0, the clients use OAuth credentials, which are generated automatically when the Task Mining Client connects for the first time.
The Workforce Productivity app in Studio.
If you want to verify the automated setup or troubleshoot any problems, here’s how to view each component:
For the data processing service, in your Task Mining project navigation, select Run & Schedule. You can view the run history for the data transformation, run it manually, and schedule it to run regularly.
For the data pool and data model, in your Task Mining project navigation, select Project Connection, then click Go to Data Pool. Or from the Celonis navigation menu, go to Data > Data Integration. The data pool’s name is
Task Mining Data Pool - your project name. The data model’s name isTask Mining Data Model - your project name.For the storage bucket, in your Task Mining project navigation, select Project Connection, then click Go to Storage Manager. Or add
storage-manager/ui/storageto the URL for your Celonis team in your browser’s address bar, like this:https://<team>.<cluster>.celonis.cloud/storage-manager/ui/storage
The storage bucket’s name is
Task Mining Storage Bucket - your project name.For the application key, from the Celonis navigation menu, go to Admin & Settings > Applications. The application key’s name is
Task Mining App Key - your project name.For the Workforce Productivity app, on the Home page for your Task Mining project, click Go to Analysis. Or from the Celonis navigation menu, select Studio, then use the search bar in the Studio overview to search for “Workforce Productivity”. Select the app package named after your project (
your project name - Workforce Productivity).Task Mining installs the app package in the Studio space “Default” if it exists, or if it doesn’t, in the first Studio space it finds.Tip
If you access the Workforce Productivity app before you’ve captured any data, you’ll see errors in the views. If you want to remove some of them, publish a version of the app. There's a Publish button at the top of all the screens in your Studio space.
Stage 2: Configure your project and invite test users
On the Home page for your Task Mining project, click Go to Client Settings. Or in your Task Mining project navigation, select Client Settings.
Leave the radio button for Basic settings checked. In these instructions, we’ll assume you’re using the basic settings to get started, and the advanced settings to refine your data capture after your initial testing.
In the Captured Applications section of the client settings, choose whether you want to capture data for all applications and web pages, or for specific applications and web pages, or for all applications and web pages with some exceptions. Capturing data for only specific applications and web pages creates an allowlist, and capturing data with all applications creates a denylist. If you’re using one of these approaches:
Select each application you want to allow or deny, or enter its Microsoft Windows process name (see Finding the process name for a specific application). Then select Add Application to add it to the list.
Type each of the URLs you want to allow or deny, then select Add URL to add it to the list.
In the Captured Details section of the client settings, activate any additional data types beyond basic data that you want the Task Mining Client software to capture.
By default, we capture the name of the active window or the web browser tab.
You can also add contextual information about how the user interacts with the application or page, input values, and screenshots.
If you enable the setting Context of application or webpage, the Task Mining Client software will be capturing data provided by Microsoft UI Automation attributes. For more information about what to expect, see Capturing UI Automation data.
In the Privacy Settings section of the client settings, verify that the data handling settings are appropriate and sufficient for your organization. By default, we take all of the listed privacy measures, which are:
Hashing user names for pseudonymization in the Task Mining project.
Redacting the Windows user name and the machine name from captured data.
Redacting email addresses, US Social Security numbers, and credit card numbers from captured data.
You’ll need to change to the advanced settings if you need to redact additional types of content, such as social security numbers from other countries.
In the Startup Mode section of the client settings, choose whether the Task Mining Client starts automatically when the user’s computer starts, or is activated manually by the user when they want to start capturing data.
In the User Consent section of the client settings, create the consent notice that we’ll show to users before they start capturing data using the Task Mining Client. We’ve provided some guidance about what you can include. Check with your organization’s legal department to validate and approve your proposed notice.
When you’ve completed your configuration, select Save Client Settings.
On the Home page for your Task Mining project, click Go to Users. Or in your Task Mining project navigation, select Users & Invite.
Click Invite Users. You’ll see an invite link for your project. Click Copy to clipboard to copy the link, then click Done.
Send the invite link to a small number of users who can help you capture some test data for the applications or use case you’re targeting. You can use the link yourself if you want to capture test data from your own machine. Task Mining Desktop Application has the requirements for user machines to run the Task Mining Client software.
When users follow the invite link, they’ll get an invitation to download and install the latest version of the Task Mining Client software, then connect their client to your project. You’ll see connected users listed on the Users & Invite page for your Task Mining project, and you’ll be able to see when they’re online.
Tip
Users of the Task Mining Client software can’t see or edit your Task Mining project or the results in the Workforce Productivity app, unless they’re members of your Celonis team with access to the project or the app.
Stage 3: Validate your test data and refine your project
When you’ve collected some data from your user testers or your own machine, use the Workforce Productivity app to validate it. To get to the app, on the Home page for your Task Mining project, click Go to Analysis. Or from the Celonis navigation menu, select Studio if you didn’t publish the app, or Apps if you did, then search or browse for the app. The app package is named after your project (
your project name - Workforce Productivity).Tip
As well as validating the captured data, get feedback from your user testers on their experience of installing and using the Task Mining Client software. This will help you decide how to roll out the client at scale.
Refine your project’s settings as needed to improve your data capture or the end user experience.
You can change the basic settings on the Client Settings page for your Task Mining project.
If you need more granularity, such as setting specific logging fields that you do or don’t want to capture for an application, you can select the radio button for Advanced settings instead.
Tip
You won’t be able to use the basic settings after you’ve switched to the advanced settings. If you save the basic settings later, they’ll overwrite your advanced settings.
To use the advanced settings, click Configure Settings, then follow the steps on the Client Settings page to download the advanced configuration editor to your desktop, download the current configuration file, edit it in the configuration editor, and upload it back to your Task Mining project.
Task Mining - Configuration Editor has more information on using the configuration editor and what settings are available.
Validate your project’s new settings using more data and user feedback from your user testers, and make further refinements as needed. When you’re confident that your project is working well with your representative sample of users, validate it by inviting a larger sample of your target users.
When you’ve completed your validation testing, before rolling out the project at scale, go back to your client settings (basic or advanced). Verify that your privacy settings (user pseudonymization and and data redaction) are appropriate for a project in production, and confirm them with your organization’s legal department. Also update your user consent notice to reflect the goals for the project now it’s in production (for example, the business purpose and the recipients of the captured data), and confirm it with your organization’s legal department.
Stage 4: Roll out your project
When your Task Mining project is ready, you can continue inviting more users with the invite link, and get them to install the software and join the Task Mining project themselves. Alternatively, you can roll out the Task Mining Client software on your users’ machines as an administrator-led process, so your IT team can push the software to multiple user machines at once. Centralized Admin Rollout Options has more information about centralized deployment options.
When you’re planning your rollout, note that on average, Celonis Task Mining can keep 6 months of historical data for each Task Mining project. This average is based on 2,500 concurrent users (that is, users with the Task Mining Client software installed on their machines and sending data to Celonis Platform) sending a typical amount of captured events daily. The exact technical limitation is a maximum of 1.6 billion events that can be analyzed. So with fewer users, data can be analyzed for a proportionally longer historical time frame. For example, with 625 users in a project, you could analyze data for approximately 24 months.
Each realm can support approximately 30,000 concurrent users, though additional limits for a realm might apply. If you are planning a project with more concurrent users than the 2,500 we’ve taken as an average, please talk to your Celonis point of contact about it.