Top Task Mining Software to Compare in 2023

According to the Everest Group, task mining is one of the fastest growing areas in intelligent automation with 75 - 85% growth in adoption annually in recent years.¹ But many enterprise leaders still wonder what task mining is and what it can do for their company. 

Let's break this opportunity down and look at some of your top options for task mining software.

What is task mining software?

Task mining helps companies automatically analyze how work is done across various tasks performed by employees and teams. It typically works by collecting data such as keystrokes, clicks, screenshots or screen recordings from different user’s desktop computers or workstations.

The goal of task mining software is to improve operational efficiency - for example, through streamlining key processes, identifying ways to reduce handling time or automate key tasks. In this way, it works very similarly to process mining software. The key difference is that task mining gives a perspective on workflows happening across different business applications and gives a level of detail far more in-depth than process mining.

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What is task mining tools used for?

Task mining is about analyzing tasks within business processes to increase productivity and manage digitalized work more efficienctly. You can think of it as the reverse engineering of every detail of high performing digital workflows - looking at how fast, accurately and efficiently tasks can be performed with data science methods.

Processes and sub-processes are made up of numerous tiny phases, but, despite living in the digital age, many employees still waste time on manual work. In fact, an average office worker today performs 1000+ copy pastes a week and spends 1/2 of their time in repetitive tasks. Thankfully, task mining increases general transparency and identifies tasks that can be automated. 

Task mining is not, as some people worry, a tool to monitor or spy on employees. The technology looks at employee activity to remove bottlenecks and inefficient workflows. In some cases, task mining provides individual reporting that can help balance case management workload and reduce burnout. In other cases, insights are anonymized and shared on a team level to ensure that insights are used for optimizing processes instead of tracking individual employee performance.

How task mining software works in a nutshell 🌰

Task mining tools track user behaviors to learn how employees carry out their work. This happens either through task capture technology such as desktop recording software or different forms of artificial intelligence.

• Legacy task mining software gathers information on clicks, scrolls, and other actions, along with screenshots and time stamps. Sometimes these recorders may need to be activated and paused when the task mining takes place.
• Advanced task mining software uses AI technologies like object character recognition (OCR) or advanced desktop agents to scan workstation activity for key activity within business applications.

The captured task data is harmonized, processed and visualized in business intelligence dashboards in a similar method to process mining algorithms in that data is showed on a time and motion basis, showing in chronological order how key activities took place within a business process. Unlike process mining, task mining can reach a level of detail identifying work activities that don't produce event logs, for example, it can track toggles between different applications or the througput time of case work even when events are not specifically logged in the workflow software.

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What makes a good task mining tool? 

Each company will have different needs, use cases and benefits for task mining software. For example, the needs of enterprise businesses and SMEs way be greatly different.

According to Gartner², a task mining tool should support the following capabilities: 

• Data preparation -Explores, combines, cleans, and turns raw data into a curated dataset at scale.
• Data visualization - A graphical representation of information that offers insights by highlighting patterns and trends.
• Data security - Protects sensitive information with encryption, masking, erasure, resilience and end-user privacy.
• OCR - Data is automatically extracted from printed or handwritten text from a scanned document or picture file using optical character recognition (OCR) technology. It transforms text into a machine-readable format so that it can be used for data-processing tasks like editing or searching. It is also helpful for deciphering UI-level interaction with objects.
• Automated insights - provides teams with direction regarding the automatable nature of tasks and subprocesses. This provides significant recommendations regarding the difficulty of task execution, as well as specific simulations and visualizations that outline significant insights for decision-makers.
• Computer vision -  computer vision uses digital photos or movies to derive in-depth knowledge. From an engineering standpoint, it aims to comprehend and automate operations that the human visual system is capable of. 

The above list describes some technical features. It's important to also remember that a good task mining tool is one that is easy to implement and does the job of providing task capture and insights effectively for your business use case. In this regard, there are many different solutions catering to the needs of large, medium and smaller organizations.

Below we go through some of the more popular options.

Top task mining tools to consider for your business

1. Workfellow Process Intelligence

An emerging new solution for automated task analysis is called Workfellow Process Intelligence. It works like a task mining solution but gives additional end-to-end process insights through a new AI-powered method called Work API.

Work API analyzes processes across all IT systems and business applications more quickly and easily without the use of IT or integration resources. It gives insights from tasks, processes, and systems to provide a 360-degree view of operational excellence. For more information, see the Work API Whitepaper.

The unique plug-and-play technology gives detailed task intelligence to help find improvement opportunities and automatically recommends how to achieve them. What’s more, Workfellow doesn’t collect any personal data, so employees are free of GDPR concerns.

Workfellow works with enterprise companies across different industries but is especially focused on knowledge-intensive digital work, such as financial operations, insurance and banking. For more information, read case-study how one medium-sized business process outsourcing (BPO) firm uncovered over € 2 million ($2.17 million) in process waste.

Key features of Workfellow:

• Plug-and-play implementation that requires no integrations,
• Customizable Work API allows you to whitelist which applications and web apps to track,
• GDPR free technology that does not process personally identifiable data,
• Get actionable insights within 30 days combining both task and process insights.

2. UIPath Task Capture

Another major task mining solution is from UiPath, the leading robotic process automation vendor.

UiPath Task Mining employs a data-driven methodology to get a deeper understanding of the tasks that employees conduct on their desktops to uncover potential areas for process improvement and candidates for automation.

The technology spots variations of certain tasks and combines them to provide a comprehensive view, or use AI-powered analysis to mine the unexplored areas to find repeated tasks.

Key features of UiPath Task Mining:

• Task Capture for recording employee actions
• Integration with UiPath's RPA platform
• Advanced analytics and visualization
• Collaboration features for teams

3. Celonis Task Mining 

Celonis the the market leader in process mining and as such, it also has built out task mining capabilities.

Celonis Task Mining runs in the background of desktops to see numerous actions, such as clicks and keyboard shortcuts. Designed with privacy in mind, the technology is only activated when employees use a whitelisted application.  

With Celonis, a raw event log of clicks, scrolls, and various other actions is generated by a desktop application using Windows API. Users have the option to log screenshots in png format. Analysts can view status messages and errors in the admin panel.

Key features of Celonis Task Mining:

• Task miner Windows client that runs in the background and runs on whitelisted apps,
• Captures clicks, keyboard shortcuts and other user activities,
• Real-time task and process visualization connected to the Celonis process model,
• Can capture additional information such as event metadata and screenshots.

4. ABBYY Task Mining

Another intelligent automation suite, ABBYY, is known for it's capabilities in task mining under the ABBYY Timeline solution offering.

ABBYY Task Mining can be broken down into three steps: recording, analysis, and recommendations. The technology captures variations in how tasks are performed over a large period of time to enable large teams of desktop users to see variations in user interaction paths. 

ABBYY Task Mining also protects privacy with OCR technology that removes sensitive information. After gathering and analyzing information, the technology recommends tasks for automation based on length of time, repetition, and complexity. By doing this, ABBYY Timeline helps organizations scale high-value automation and build transformation plans.

Key features of ABBYY Task Mining / Timeline:

• Task capture based on OCR technology screen recording,
• Task and process visualizations,
• Integration with OCR technology for document processing,
• Customizable dashboards and reports.

5. ActiveOps 

ActiveOps is a workforce management tool used especially in case management and employee productivity analysis. It offers three complimentary solutions, Controliq for workforce management, WorkQ for employee productivity analysis and CaseworkQ for active case work management.

ActiveOps is capable of tracking workstation activities from desktops and virtual machines (Citrix) - providing real-time and historic trends on performance for employees and teams.

Key features of ActiveOps:

• Workstation tracking for employees, virtual machines and mainframes,
• Unique focus on case management optimization,
• Management layer process automation functionality,
• Workforce benchmarking functionality.

6. IBM Task Mining 

IBM Task Mining is an on-screen activity analysis tool for desktop computers. It keeps track of, examines, and produces insights about user interactions, and it also connects integrates with IBM Process Mining.

In order to capture, gather, store, and process data, the IBM Task Mining architecture has four components: TM Web, TM Agent, TM Backend, and Persistency Layer. The architecture guarantees the 256 bit Key Encryption and Persistency Layer data security. In order to provide seamless interoperability between the two programs, it also translates and loads the data from IBM Task Mining into IBM Process Mining. 

Key features of IBM Task Mining:

• Time measurement, including the ability to track idle time and time delays resulting from context switches or rework.
• Root cause identification for inefficiencies and improving employee productivity,
• Cost estimations and comparisons supporting automation opportunity identificiation,
• Work pattern simulation for identifying automation potential and cost benefits.

6. ActivTrak

ActivTrak is a cloud-based workforce analytics and productivity software. ActivTrak helps organizations monitor and analyze the activities of their employees to gain insights into how they spend their time, improve productivity, and optimize the workplace.

ActivTrak is capable of analyzing both remote and in-office workforces and helps assess capacity to balance workloads. It works with a desktop data collection agent analyzing employees work trends and productivity. It provides dashboards for managers to measure and coach employees on efficiency and improving productivity.

Key features of ActivTrak:

• Windows desktop agent tracking that doesn't look at keystrokes or record desktop activity,
• Coaching functionality for operations managers to reduce burnout and improve productivity,
• Ability to measure and manage productivity of in-office, remote or hybrid workforce,
• Productivity dashboards for managers and employees to track productivity.

7. Ultimate.suite

Ultimate.suite is an on-premise task mining solution used for management performance and continuous improvement, as well as identifying automation opportunities. The solution is used for performance management in key tasks, eg. invoice processing and identifies bottlenecks and productivity issues.

While Ultimate.suite does not provide process mining functionality it does have a partnership with Apromore for a combined offering.

Key features of Ultimate.suite:

• Coverage of different types of task mining use cases,
• Fast and simple deployment,
• More privacy as data anonymization,
• Ability to do on premise installation.

8. Mimica

Mimica is a task mining solution that focuses on process discovery and supporting automation initiatives. It's core solutions Mimica Miner and Mimica Mapper bring process mining functionality with desktop task capture technology. Mimica's key focus is on identifying and aiding automation opportunities, for example, through RPA.

Mimica has a partnership with UiPath to support identification of automation opportunities and sharing BPMN process models between the two systems.

Key features of Mimica:

• Desktop task mining functionality that can give results within 1-2 weeks,
• Can create procedure design documents (PDD) to give details for automation,
• Integrate directly with UiPath for RPA project management,
• Focus on RPA and automation use cases.

9. Sapience Analytics

Sapience is a workforce analytics company focused on driving business operations transformation. It's able to track both in-office and remote / contingent workforce activity.

Sapience offers two complimentary workforce analytics solutions. The Enterprise Workforce solution core use case is to manage capacity in work-intensive services both for employees. The Contingent Workforce solution is used to manage vendors, giving time estimates for work and analytics on contingent work productivity.

• Unique transparenSEE three-way matching functionality for tracking and approving contingence workforce spend,
• Only tracks work related apps and does not utilize keylogging, screen scraping or image capture,
• Gives utilization analytics to track productivity and wasted time across the organization,
• Gives dashboards for employee productivity tracking and management.

10. StereoLOGIC

With StereoLOGIC, you have access to all the tools you need to examine and improve your business operations. You can quickly employ all analytical capabilities, including Operational Intelligence, Process Mining, and Task Mining, without expending any additional work in one automated modeling platform.

The technology precisely extracts and maps employee tasks without requiring desktop installation.  Even if employees regularly stop these jobs as they go from one to the next, StereoLOGIC will still give precise documentation and analytics data for each task.

Key features of StereoLogic

• Detailed, specific details on each task
• Elimination of noise, including interruptions and diversions from employees, which often skew task mining
• Identification of inefficiencies and activities that don't offer value
• Deletion of confidential client and staff data

11. Microsoft Process Advisor 

Microsoft has a broad suite of business process management and automation solutions. Within this service offering comes both the Process Mining solution acquired from Minit and task mining capabilities.

Task mining in Microsoft Process Advisor enables you to capture precise steps for any process in your organization to better understand where to streamline workflows. You can carry out this activity alone or with the collaboration of coworkers. 

A process map that depicts the check-in procedure is generated automatically by Process Advisor. You can observe which actions take the most time, how many different ways the check-in process is implemented, and how many different ways it is implemented.

Key Process Advisor task mining functionality:

• Capture and analyze Microsoft Windows desktop activity,
• Analyze processes and visualize process maps in a similar way to process mining software,
• Ability to analyze application usage based on a activity recorder,
• Automation recommendations that show which connectors to employ depending on your workflows.