Task Mining

After observing thousands of workflows across different enterprises, we’ve noticed the same costly pattern: teams rely on gut feeling or scattered reports to optimize processes, but miss the hidden inefficiencies draining productivity. Manual process analysis is where good operations often fail. For example, your team invests weeks in mapping out a “standard” workflow for invoice approvals, only to discover later that employees were navigating six additional clicks in Excel to format data correctly. Multiply that by hundreds of employees, and you’re bleeding hours you didn’t even know you were losing. The real problem is understanding what actually happens in day-to-day work. That’s where task mining enters. It minutely examines your business operations, drilling into the tiny details, clicks, wait times, and copy-paste loops that quietly eat hours every week. You’re basically watching every task unfold frame by frame. You see exactly how a document gets created, who touches it, how long each step takes, and what edits happen along the way. In this blog, we’ll walk through: What task mining actually means (not just the fancy definition). Why it matters: benefits ranging from smarter automation to happier teams. How real companies used task mining to transform how work gets done. By the end, you answer: Should I invest in task mining? And more importantly: Where will it give me the biggest wins? What is Task Mining? Task mining observes how work is actually done by capturing the keystrokes, mouse clicks, and data entries employees make day in and day out. This mining technique reveals the real way tasks get done, rather than following a process doc version. According to Gartner Peer Insights, “task mining tools capture low-level user interactions such as clicks and keystrokes, then apply technologies like OCR and NLP to create actionable insights.” It incorporates smart tech features like OCR (to read on-screen text), NLP (to understand context), and machine learning (to identify patterns). The result is more than raw data. You get insights on where work slows down, where people take detours, and which steps to streamline or automate. Instead of knowing “how long an approval process takes,” you can see: How many times do employees switch between systems to enter the same data? Where delays occur (e.g., waiting for a manager’s review, toggling between tools). How do inconsistencies or errors arise out of changes in task execution? The result is visual and easy-to-digest task flows, heatmaps, and dashboards that indicate inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and repeated work. To leaders, it offers a factual means of responding: Where are we wasting time? Which tasks are truly ready for automation? How do we make work smoother for your team and customers? In short, task mining closes the gap between how processes are supposed to work and how they actually happen, down to the human level. How Does Task Mining Work? Task mining works in the following way: Data collection It begins with gathering user interaction history on the workstations of employees using lightweight agents. Key captures include: Keystrokes: Records text input to map data-entry patterns. Mouse clicks and movements: Tracks navigation paths and selections. Clipboard activities: Spots copy-paste loops. Applications: Use of apps, the interactions between applications. This runs in real time and is designed to show users real task execution. Data processing and cleaning The second step makes your data analysis-ready by: Filtering out irrelevant data: Remove non-task actions. Anonymization: Mask or exclude sensitive info to protect privacy and meet regulations. Segmentation: Split the stream into discrete tasks or activities for finer analysis. Pattern recognition and analysis With clean data, algorithms look for meaningful patterns: Sequence mapping: This is used to show the order of the activities in order to visualize task flows. Frequency analysis: Display the frequency of occurrence of particular tasks. Duration measurement: Measure the time spent on each step to spot slow points. It helps you identify deviations, redundant steps, and opportunities for process improvement. Visualization and reporting Analysis is converted into easy visuals, like flowcharts, heatmaps, and dashboards, so stakeholders can quickly grasp complex task structures and pinpoint trouble spots. Insights and actionable recommendations Finally, the system suggests concrete next steps, such as: Standardization of processes: Coordinate the way work is accomplished between teams. Automation opportunities: Flag repetitive, rules-based work for RPA. Training requirements: Determine areas that individuals would like to receive specific coaching. What are the Benefits of Task Mining? Task mining for mid-sized companies For mid-sized businesses, task mining delivers the biggest impact. Large companies can throw money at consultants and automation pilots; smaller startups can pivot quickly without layers of legacy processes. But mid-sized organizations? They’re in the messy middle, big enough to feel the weight of inefficiencies, yet lean enough that wasted hours hit the bottom line hard. For example, a finance team of 40 people is processing invoices. If every employee spends an extra 10 minutes per day hovering around poorly designed software quirks, that’s 400 minutes lost daily. That’s more than 130 hours every month, basically the same as losing an extra employee to busywork. Task mining highlights hidden leaks, so leaders see exactly where time is slipping away and patch the holes. Benefits of task mining for businesses Efficiency By recording real user actions, you know about wasted keystrokes, redundant copy-pastes, or awkward system hops. Suddenly, those “small” inefficiencies like switching between three systems to enter the same data become visible targets for elimination. Transparency Ever map out a “perfect workflow” only to find reality is messier? Task mining gives you visibility into how tasks actually happen: all the detours, back-and-forths, mess-ups, delays. You stop relying on “gut feel” or someone’s theory and start making changes based on what people say. Employee productivity and satisfaction Employees hate performing menial and low-value jobs, thereby reducing productivity. Why? Employees hate to spend hours on copy-paste or operate with clunky systems. Freeing them from such tasks encourages them to focus on what's important. A Harvard Business Review Analytic Services report confirms that digitizing workflows reduces errors but significantly improves employee and customer satisfaction. Lower cost The more additional clicks or handoffs your team experiences, the more money you waste. Task mining identifies areas of inefficiency, cleans them up, eliminates waste, and manages your resources better. Stronger compliance and reliability Task mining offers logs of what actually happens, proving process adherence, passing audits, or showing you follow standards. This adds a layer of trust and consistency. Better automation readiness You don’t want to build bots or tools on shaky ground. Task mining identifies repetitive, rules-based, and high-frequency tasks, automating only those. You invest in automating the right processes irrespective of their difficulty level. Task mining as a foundation for sustainable and scalable automation Most automation projects fail because they start on shaky ground. Companies rush to build bots, only to find that the underlying processes are inconsistent, messy, or not even worth automating. Task mining brings a change to that. By capturing the real way tasks are done, every click, copy-paste, and delay, it highlights which steps are repetitive, stable, and rule-based. Those are your best candidates for automation. It highlights where human judgment is crucial, preventing you from wasting effort on automating processes that shouldn’t be automated. McKinsey’s 2025 AI report highlights that organizations which prioritize automation based on accurate process data see stronger ROI and scalability than those relying on assumptions. As a result, you avoid short-lived fixes and build an automation pipeline that lasts. Instead of patching together bots that break whenever the process changes, you create a sustainable and scalable roadmap for automation. This process gives you the data to streamline first, automate second, and grow with confidence. For example, a global bank used task mining before rolling out RPA in its accounts payable process. They discovered that staff spent nearly 25% of their time reformatting invoices in Excel before approvals. By focusing on it first, they reduce processing time and then focus on automation. What is the Difference Between Task Mining and Process Mining? Key differences and complementary strengths Task mining magnifies in, and process mining zooms out. The former records the keystrokes, clicks, and on-screen behaviors of the employees, revealing how operations execute in the real world. Conversely, the latter examines the event log of business systems (ERP, CRM, etc.) to follow complete workflows until the end. Task mining and process mining are complementary. One of them brings out a large-scale picture, the other brings out the details. When to use which approach (or combine them) Task mining is suitable if you are attempting to repair minor, recurring issues, such as copy-pasting between systems, manual data entry, or never-ending clicks. Process mining provides you with the end-to-end perspective of the order-to-cash or the procure-to-pay process. But most companies find the real value in combining them. Start broad with process mining to spot the issues, then drill down with task mining to uncover the root cause. Take Accounts Payable as an example. Process mining might show that approvals are slowing down the workflow. Task mining reveals that employees are toggling between ERP and Excel, reformatting PDFs, and manually entering data. Put together, you get both the “where” and the “why,” and that clarity leads to real change. SituationUse task miningUse process miningCombine themYou want to fix repetitive, manual work inside tasks (data entry, formatting, toggling between tools)✅❌Process mining shows where in the overall flow the delay happens, and task mining shows why.You need to see end-to-end flows, e.g. order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, or customer journey from first contact to resolution❌✅To understand both the high-level path and the detailed friction inside every step. Task mining vs process mining Here’s a table showing how process mining is different from task mining: FeatureTask miningProcess miningFocusFocuses on the individual work tasks of the employees (keystrokes/clicks/data entry).Focuses on end-to-end workflows across systems and departments.Data sourceUser interaction data from desktops and apps (keystrokes, mouse clicks, on-screen activity).Event logs and system data (ERP, CRM, HR systems, etc.).PerspectiveMicroscope. Detailed human-level actions.Map. High-level process flows.Best forGathering task-level inefficiencies, automating tasks (RPA).Mapping the entire processes, identifying the bottlenecks, and compliance.OutputTask flows, heatmaps, and dashboards of user actions.Process models, visual workflows, performance metrics.Complementary strengthExplains the why behind bottlenecks (extra clicks, detours, rework).Shows where bottlenecks happen in the overall process.Example use caseDiscovering that employees spend 10 minutes reformatting invoices in Excel before uploading.Revealing that invoice approvals take 5 days due to multiple manager handoffs. Use Cases and Practical Examples Finance Record-to-Report (R2R): As a business, you always have to close out financials every month. A finance team can use task mining to see where journal entries, reconciliations, and reporting became tedious due to manual Excel reconciliations, system copy issues, and delayed approvals. Task mining revealed exactly which steps your teams repeated manually and how long they took. You can automate these manual handoffs and reduce errors. Procure-to-Pay (P2P): Despite good procurement systems, even companies face hiccups such as vendor onboarding, invoice approvals, and manual exception processing. Task mining provides specific points of delay in these tasks (e.g., in approval queues, document formatting, and exception resolution). With task mining insights, you enforce policies, standardize tasks across units, and speed up approvals. Onboarding and verification in banking/finance: Large banks can apply task mining to their onboarding workflow. They identify the bottlenecks in manual verification (paperwork, manual checks) that slow down the enrolment of new clients. As soon as you observe these steps on a step-by-step basis, you redesign parts of the flow, automating repetitive verification where feasible and shortening the onboarding time. Backoffice & IT Support Helpdesk ticketing & incident management: IT support has a large number of tickets with common resolution paths, and there are also numerous minor cases, such as switching tools, data copying, and approval waiting. Task mining identifies these recurring patterns, reducing noise, minimizing the number of tool changes, automating frequent ticket responses, and storing information. Back-office processes: Shared services teams used task mining in back-office workflows like processing invoices and reconciling payments. The data exposed where staff were doing extra work due to inconsistent formats, duplicative entries, or manual exception handling. Armed with that, they standardized templates, automated repetitive tasks, and reduced the volume of exceptions. IT support: Ticket triage often involves agents switching between several systems, copying issue descriptions, and maybe searching multiple tools for history. Task mining maps agent tasks, identifies where time is wasted (e.g., tool hopping, manual tracking), and reveals root causes (e.g., poor documentation, awkward tool interfaces). From these insights, you make improvements in tool integration, knowledge base, and sometimes automation of repetitive triage steps. Task Mining Software and Solutions 5 leading task mining software Paxray Paxray is designed for mid-sized businesses that want actionable insights without long deployment cycles. The tool goes live in a single day, which makes it one of the fastest tools to implement. The platform captures work across all applications, including ERP systems, custom tools, Excel, and browser software. The reason why top companies choose Paxray is its emphasis on privacy. It does not capture screens or keystrokes, and the tool anonymizes and encrypts all the information. Processing is either in a cloud environment or on a fully on-premise system, making it appealing to companies operating within regulated industries. UiPath Task Mining UiPath is a leader in robotic process automation, and its task mining solution reflects that focus. The tools focus on gathering data and user interactions and identifying tasks you can automate. The tool is an integral part of the UiPath automation suite, which is why it’s a logical choice for firms already using UiPath. Skan AI Skan AI is designed to minimize disruption during deployment. It applies computer vision and machine learning to monitor user interactions across applications, helping businesses gain a detailed view of work patterns without requiring large-scale IT projects. Microsoft Process Advisor Process Advisor belongs to the Power Automate family of Microsoft, making it a convenient point of entry to those already within the Microsoft ecosystem. It enables users to log their work and workflow, and visualize it and bottlenecks. The tool detects redundant tasks and where automation can have the best effect. Mimica Mimica identifies repetitive jobs that are good candidates for automation. The tool logs user interactions, uses machine learning to identify patterns, and automatically generates process maps. Mimica minimizes the number of man-hours required for identifying automation opportunities. Automating the discovery phase helps teams speed up the design and implementation process of robotic process automation. How Paxray fits in the market Paxray focuses on the needs of mid-sized businesses that want quick insights, affordable pricing, and complete trust in data privacy. Here’s how it fits the market: Processes from the user’s Perspective There are two ways to understand business processes: through systems or through people. Process mining takes the system view. It follows cases, such as purchase orders, through system logs to show the end-to-end flow. This answers where problems occur, but not why. Task mining focuses on the employee's perspective. Analyzing fundamental user interactions during process execution reveals how tasks are actually performed. This provides leaders with a clear understanding of where operational potential lies and why inefficiencies exist. Lightweight Process mining projects often need months of preparation to clean and harmonize event data. Costs can quickly rise into six- or seven-figure budgets. Paxray task mining serves to collect data directly, eliminating the need for heavy integration work. Projects usually take weeks and stay within your budget. Independent Process mining depends heavily on the quality of system logs, which vary and even derail projects. Task mining avoids this risk by capturing user actions directly across all applications. The result is consistent, independent data of reliable quality. Fast Setup Paxray is up and running in a single day. There is no need to wait before teams can realize the value of long-term integration projects. The dashboards and process maps are for business users and technical experts. As a result, insights are simple to comprehend Privacy-First Built in partnership with European data privacy experts, Paxray is GDPR-compliant. It doesn’t record sensitive data such as screenshots or keystroke logs. All data on activities is anonymized and encrypted, which makes the employees feel safe and minimizes the obstacles to adoption. Right-sized for mid-sized organizations Unlike heavy enterprise platforms, Paxray keeps costs manageable and features focused. It identifies manual workarounds, plans ERP migrations, and automates projects with a clear ROI. The outcome is a solution that provides an impact without the extra complexity. FAQs What are the differences between task mining and process mining? Task mining examines the actions users take (e.g., clicks, keystrokes), while process mining reconstructs end-to-end workflows from system logs. What is a good task mining tool for a mid-sized company? Paxray is a strong option for mid-sized firms due to its user-friendliness, affordability, and full GDPR compliance. Why is process mining not enough to improve employee workflows? Process mining does not consider manual steps and workarounds that can only be identified with task mining.Process mining does not consider manual steps and workarounds that can only be identified with task mining. How can I find automation opportunities in manual work? Use task mining tools to identify and capture repetitive tasks, identify inefficiencies, and prioritize them based on ROI. What tools analyze user tasks without process mining systems? Task mining platforms, such as Paxray, provide direct insight into user activity. The Bottom Line on Task Mining Task mining provides a front office view of how employees do their work. You no longer make decisions based on some gut feeling or process charts because you can see each step, each click, and each unknown path. This clarity will do away with unproductive effort, enhance employee satisfaction, and create a better base of automation. The payoff is immense for mid-sized companies, as you understand inefficiencies that impact productivity and are not apparent in traditional process mining. You optimize finance processes, enhance your IT support, and are better prepared for an ERP migration. This helps you make better decisions about where to allocate your time, energy, and automation. Do you want to see the hidden inefficiencies in your workflows? Schedule a demo to know how Paxray can help.

All about Task Mining: Definition, Benefits and Use Cases

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