Pathways
SAM Pathways helps researchers prepare qualitative event logs, inspect route variation, and keep every pathway map tied back to source evidence.
Start with complex transcripts, survey responses, workshop notes or case-study rows. Use Pathways Prep to draft Start, Step and End events, review timing and source excerpts, then turn the confirmed event log into maps of routes, loops, bottlenecks and delays.
Product Preview
Pathways gives researchers a structured way to move from qualitative process evidence into visual route analysis without losing the link back to the material.
Features
Use SAM to prepare qualitative process data, map route variation, and review the evidence behind each transition.
Upload a messy or complex CSV/XLSX before analysis. SAM drafts a Pathways-ready event log with generated case IDs, event order, activity labels, temporal expressions, resolved dates where possible, source excerpts and review notes for anything that needs researcher checking.
Once the event log is reviewed, SAM builds the Pathways graph with deterministic code. The map, timings, filters, transitions and exports come from the prepared rows rather than from an LLM-generated diagram.
Click into transitions, route groups and bottlenecks to inspect the case examples behind the map. Export the event log, graph data and evidence bundle for teaching, supervision, client review or team discussion.
Workflow
Prepare the event log, check the uncertain parts, then map only the structure you are willing to stand behind.
Research position
SAM Pathways sits between qualitative process tracing, process mapping and process mining. It borrows the discipline of event logs and route-map visualisation, but it does not assume qualitative data already exists as clean system logs. Researchers still define the case, the event, the timing logic, the source evidence and the meaning of each step. SAM then makes that reviewed structure easier to inspect, compare and discuss. SAM Pathways is not an LLM-generated process map. The pathway structure, validation, graph, timings, filters and exports are produced by deterministic code from the researcher's prepared event log. SAM AI is used only in optional assistive steps, such as shortening messy wording into reviewable labels or drafting a narrative summary from the already-built graph.
For training and methodology pages, please cite Sam Martin's first-authored process-mapping paper: Martin et al. (2023), `Cancers`, 15(15), 3946.
https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15153946SAM in Action
SAM Pathways is especially useful for supervisors, methods trainers and consultants who need to show how qualitative process evidence becomes a defensible map. Use the training form to ask about PhD support, team onboarding, consultancy workshops or webinar sessions.
Contact for trainingFAQ
A Pathways dataset is a prepared event log with case identifiers, activity or episode labels, and a confirmed sequence or time order.
Pathways needs researcher-confirmed journey structure. Social feeds and loose text corpora can create misleading maps if treated as event logs.
Yes, when the data has been structured as a checked event log with appropriate consent and governance.
No. The pathway graph, validation checks, timings, filters and exports are generated by deterministic code from the prepared event log. SAM AI is optional and assistive: it can help shorten messy wording into reviewable labels or draft a written summary from an already-built graph.
Pathways starts closer to qualitative process tracing because the researcher identifies cases, events, sequence, timing and source evidence. It then uses process-mapping style visuals to show how those traces move through routes, loops, bottlenecks and delays. Unlike process mining, it does not require enterprise event logs; it is designed for qualitative and mixed-methods research data that needs interpretation before mapping.
Yes. Health and care journeys are a strong use case, but the same structure can support SHAPE and social-science work including policy implementation, education, organisational change, service evaluation, public engagement, consultancy and training datasets.
Pathways Prep helps turn messy or complex CSV/XLSX files into a reviewable Pathways event log. It can draft case IDs, event order, Start/Step/End labels, activities, temporal expressions, resolved dates where possible, source excerpts and review notes. The researcher still checks and confirms the output before using it for analysis.
Try SAM with a sample, a pilot dataset or a teaching corpus and see which questions the material raises first.
Start free trial