Glossary
Term | Definition |
|---|---|
Action Engine helps you to involve everyone in your organization in the transformation journey. Action Engine operationalizes insights by proactively providing your business users with personalized recommendations for action. For example, assume that you want to optimize the cash discount realization in your Accounts Payable process. Action Engine can continuously analyze your open invoices, detect the ones with advancing discount expiry, notify the responsible business users and allow them to trigger the payment directly. | |
Action Flows enrich the platform by providing out-of-the-box integrations and intelligent automation to trigger actions in numerous operational systems like SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce. Within Studio, you can build any automation - from sending emails, managing files, and updating sales orders in SAP to getting data from various tools. Then, leverage a drag & drop builder to add any application to your automated workflows… and to automate any process of any complexity. | |
Activity | Activities are the different process steps of the case, which are used to reconstruct the process flow. |
A KPI in the Process and Variant Explorer counts the total number of events associated with an activity or connection. If an activity occurs multiple times for the same item, the activity frequency will take it into account, whereas the case frequency wouldn't take it into account. By displaying the activity frequency as KPI, you always see how often an activity has been conducted. | |
Activity Table | The activity table (also called Event-Log) always has to contain at least three columns - Case Key, Activity, and Event time and is the central table used to reconstruct the process flow. Additionally, the table can store further activity-specific information like the sorting or user type who conducted an activity. Creating and adjusting this table is the primary task of the Data Scientist. |
Celonis can read, write, and manage team-wide settings and permissions in this role. | |
Analyses provide you with insights into how your process runs. With Process Discovery, process-visualizations show you what's happening in your processes; so you can quickly identify opportunities to increase revenue, free capital, and ensure customer satisfaction. Alternatively to Views, a one-stop-shop integrating Analysis, Action Flows, and Task Inbox, Analysis (Instrument) is typically built for quick analysis by Analysts. In contrast, Views is more tailored for managers and transaction users to help execute processes. | |
Analysis Filter | Filters set here are global and affect the entire analysis i.e., all components among all sheets. |
This role in Celonis can read and write. | |
The Process Explorer can be animated. Colored circles of different sizes will represent the cases. They are scaled according to the number of aggregated cases. Their speed is dependent on their throughput time. The speed and the timeframe can be controlled in the bar at the button. In the Variant Explorer, various variants can be animated to highlight one. | |
Selection bookmarks will store your current selections in the selection top bar, the variable values, and currently visible columns in the OLAP table. Bookmarks can be used to store findings. Setting a bookmark will save the presently used filters for future use. Bookmarks can be shared with other Celonis users. | |
Business App | An application created by Celonis that's tailored to a specific business process and accessed from the Marketplace. |
Case | A case always refers to an instance of the object you follow through the process and depicts a single process path, such as Sales Order items in an Order-To-Cash process. |
Tool for examining single cases and their associated activities. The data provided will be presented as a table. | |
The number of unique cases, i.e., Sales order items associated with an activity or dimension. Even if one case runs through an activity multiple times, the case frequency will count as one. So the case frequency is a binary metric that shows whether a case ran through a specific activity. In contrast, the activity frequency counts every run through a particular activity. Case Frequency is the default option. | |
Case Table | It contains case-specific information and will be linked to the activity table via a foreign key. The Case ID must be the primary key of the case table. Hence, the information is stored per case. The standard KPIs like "Case-Count" are based on this table. |
The Celonis Academy is responsible for all training programs for our customers, partners, and all Celonauts. | |
The Celonis free plan receives immediate access to the and enjoys the power of the world's #1 process mining technology. | |
Public-facing demo environment so clients can interact with our process mining and Celonis Platform demos for procurement, accounts payable, order management, and lots more use cases. Start now! | |
Celonis Platform | A platform and suite of business functionality and developer functionality built by Celonis that uses process mining, task mining and automation to improve business processes and systems. |
Celopeers, the Celonis online community, offers many resources for Celonis beginners and veterans. On Celopeers, you can connect with other Celonis users, join your local user group, get information on the latest Celonis product releases, company news, and events, and get support from our Customer Support team. | |
Celosphere is the annual destination for Celonis builders, champions, and leaders. See the next generation of process mining in action. Learn how industry leaders maximize performance while fighting inflation, supply chain disruption, and climate crises. | |
Filters for single components only affect one specific component. | |
Conformance measures how well you adhere to a particular process model. A violation is if e.g., one extra activity is executed, an activity is skipped, or activities are executed in the wrong order. Celonis process mining compares the actual blueprint of the process model to the 'as-is' process model to determine the conformance rate. | |
Connector | A template that defines a ready-to-use data pipeline in Celonis is system and process-specific (e.g., Procurement for SAP ECC). It contains the ETL required to produce a process map used on the front end. Pre-built connectors live in the Celonis "Marketplace." |
Connector - Table Requirements | Connectors contain the required tables to perform analysis in Celonis. |
Data Connection | Creating a data connection enables you to connect to a specific source system and extract data. |
Data Explorer is an asset in Studio. It enables users to quickly aggregate, drill down into subsets and look at their data. | |
Data Integration. | Integrates and transforms data from a multitude of source systems into Celonis. It allows you to set up automatic data pipelines, which provide a loaded data model to all other services. |
Data Jobs | Data Jobs are used to extract data from different connected systems and then transform the data to prepare it for process mining. |
Data Jobs - Extractions | Extractions can be created using the "New Extraction" button in the data job view. |
Data Jobs - Scheduling | Schedules are used to execute data jobs automatically and regularly. In the default scenario, Schedules allow for sequential processing, which means that all the Data Jobs within one Schedule are executed one after another. If one job fails, the remaining jobs will be canceled. |
Data Job - Tasks | The individual executions of Extractions, Transformations, and Data Model Loads |
Data Job - Transformation | Transformations are used to create event logs from the extracted data used by other cloud applications like Analysis. They also clean up, restructure and process data to be suitable additions to the data model. |
Data Model | Data Models are the basis of all Celonis analyses. In a data model, you define which data can be accessed for the analyses to be built on top of it. Data Models are collections of tables and determine how the tables are connected to each other. |
Data Pools | The main structural element of Data Integration is the Data Pool. Data Pools cluster data connections, jobs, schedules, and models, equipping you with everything you need to set up a data integration workflow. |
Data Pool Parameters | Parameters help you reuse some aspects in multiple places and function as a central repository for items that can be modified in Data Jobs. Data Pool parameters are stored on a Data Pool level and can be used in all pool tasks. |
Delta Extractions | Delta filters define which entries in the table are loaded in the delta load. |
To display information, dimensions can be added to components like OLAP tables, bar charts, line charts, etc. All available columns in the data model can be selected. | |
Celonis Platform (Celonis Platform) (deprecated) | Now Celonis Platform. |
Analyses, sheets, and components can be exported. | |
Extractor | The integration capabilities between Celonis and the source system allow customers to extract data. Extractors are a pre-built platform capability accessible via "Data Connection." An extractor is usually associated with a specific system (e.g., SAP) or database (e.g., Vertica). Available for both on-prem and cloud-based source systems. |
Extractor Builder | Easily create reusable data extractors for any system that offers a REST API. The low-code extractor builder supports all major authentication and authorization methods, including OAuth2 authentication flows, and automatically tags and contextualizes relevant data from the connected systems. |
File Uploads | Users can import data into the by uploading files. This is useful when there is no continuous connectivity to the transactional source system, and the users rely on the one-time data export. Different file formats are supported, including the output generated by Celonis ABAP reports. |
Generate Documentation | By right-clicking in a blank space of an analysis (instrument), "Generate Documentation (HTML)" will show you all back-end formulas used within the analysis. |
Shows the most frequent starting activity, the most frequent ending activity, and the most frequent process variant which connects those two activities.
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Allows to show and hide activities within the Process and Variant Explorer by clicking on the eye symbol in the upper left. Choose the activities that you wish to display in your process graph. All deselected activities will be hidden in the graph. | |
Knowledge Models are the central place to store and share business knowledge within a Studio app. As part of a Package, a KM stores reusable business entity definitions like Records, KPIs, Filters, and Variables. | |
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) consolidate a set of values belonging to a single occurrence inside a dimension into one value. | |
Marketplace | Marketplace contains pre-built content and expertise from Celonis and our partners to accelerate and maximize the value achieved with Celonis. |
Various Celonis Products (e.g. Data Integration, Studio, Machine Learning, etc.) | |
The PI Social screen displays an overview of the activities, performance, and characteristics of the users involved in the analyzed process. | |
Primary Keys | It is a field that uniquely identifies each record in a table. Primary keys must contain unique values. |
Process | A process is a series of steps and decisions involved in completing work. We may not realize it, but processes are everywhere and every aspect of our leisure and work. |
The Process Adherence Manager analyzes business processes by comparing real process events with a predefined process flow using event data from the Process Intelligence Graph. | |
A process AI is a default analysis that allows you to detect and analyze deviations from the most common path. | |
Connections are the arrows between the activities in the variant and process explorer. Connections show how often another activity directly follows an activity. Directly followed means that no other activity happened in between. The dotted connections point to start-/end-activities. | |
The Process Explorer allows the user to explore their process based on the frequency of activities performed. | |
KPIs created within the Analysis settings will be visible in the Process Explorer. | |
Process Mining extracts knowledge from event logs readily available in today's information systems to visualize business processes — and their every variation — as they run. | |
The process overview is one of the default analysis screens of Analysis. It is responsible for displaying the user a broad overview of the primary metrics (cases per day, activities per day, throughput times), activities, bottlenecks, and the happy path of the generated analysis. | |
Process Query Language (PQL) | PQL is the language within Celonis Process Mining that allows the translation of business questions into executable queries on the Celonis Analytics engine. PQL is inspired by the SQL standard but is more straightforward and extended with process mining features. |
Process Repository is an integrated and centralized environment for documenting and maintaining business processes and their related information and making them accessible to leverage for Process Mining use cases. | |
Process Simulation allows you to measure the impact of potential changes on your processes and their effect on your operations. You can simulate any part of the process and assess the impact of decisions beforehand. | |
Publish | By clicking "Publish," the new version of the analysis becomes available for the Viewer. |
pycelonis | With pycelonis, you can interact with Celonis objects as native objects using python, e.g. copy an analysis, pull & push data, reload a data model, etc. |
The Replication Cockpit is the management UI to set up, orchestrate and monitor your real-time extractions. | |
An additional set of filtering possibilities. The analyst can decide whether to show or hide this additional set of filtering methods. -Attribute selection: Apply a selection that selects cases based on specific attributes - Activity selection: Select cases that pass/don't pass, start/end with certain activities. - Process flow selection: Select cases followed by a specific activity (or not). - TPT Selection: Select Cases whose processing time between two activities is shorter/longer than a certain threshold (time period) - Rework Selection: Select Cases that pass a specific activity more often or less than a certain threshold - Crop selection: Cut out a specific part of the process | |
Sheet filter | A filter that affects all components within a given sheet. |
Studio | Studio allows you to combine functional expertise with the power of Celonis Process Mining to create scalable Apps. Celonis Studio is your one-stop development platform to build, test, and edit Execution Apps and Instruments in a single, low-code interface. |
Studio Package | Studio is structured by your Apps, also called Packages. Packages are collections of Views, Analyses, Skills, and Knowledge Models. |
Studio Spaces | Studio Spaces allow you to organize your Studio Packages in a meaningful way, with access control. You can think of it as having different folders or repositories to put and access your work in. |
Task Inbox | The Inbox (also referred to as Task Inbox) acts as the central location from where business users manage and complete the Tasks assigned to them. Its features empower users to take bulk actions and view all information concerning respective Tasks without leaving the Inbox. Through the Inbox, we strive to improve the efficiency with which users complete Tasks. |
Task Mining collects and aggregates data from employee desktop tasks and turns it into understandable behavioral patterns. This allows organizations to gain a complete picture of a process by seeing how employees' actions—on data entry screens, in email, spreadsheets, websites, and other tools—affect process outcomes. | |
Task Parameters | Parameters help you to reuse certain elements in multiple places, and they also function as a central repository for items that can be modified in Data Jobs. Every task (extraction or transformation) can have one or multiple parameters of different types. They can either have a literal value or reference a Data Pool parameter of the same data type. |
Task Template | A task template is a generalized task (extraction or transformation) that is useful if you want to reuse a task. An everyday use case is using multiple systems' extractions and transformations. |
Throughput Time | The Throughput Time KPI calculates the time it takes for cases to proceed from activity A to activity B. You can choose between the Median, the Average, or the Trimmed Mean measure. Different time units such as days, hours, and minutes can be chosen. |
Transformation Center revolves around your ongoing process improvement initiatives. For this purpose, Transformation Center provides various tools to obtain an overview of the status of the current initiatives and the associated KPIs. In addition, Transformation Center allows you to take action if a KPI does not develop as desired. | |
Variant | A variant is an end-to-end path through the processes' activities. A specific set of activities followed by a case is called the case's variant. All different activity combinations that exist for the cases together are the processes' variants. |
Views | Views are the key user experience component for Apps built in Celonis Studio. A View can be added to a package in the Studio and serves as the user interface of an app to your end-users. Views are the evolution of the Analysis UI and offer a more guided user interaction. |
Object-centric process mining glossary
Here are the most important terms and definitions to know for object-centric process mining.
- attribute
A characteristic of an object or event. For example, an invoice has an ID, a total price, and a currency. The values of an object or event’s attributes show the current known facts about it. For example, if an invoice is for $50, the value of the total price attribute is 50.00, and the value of the currency attribute is US dollars.
- change
A recorded alteration (insert, delete, or change) to a value of one attribute of an object - for example, inserting a value for the InspectionStartTime attribute of the QualityInspection object to record when the inspection started. The record of a change includes the timestamp for when the change took place, and the old and new values of the attribute.
Changes are optional but are often used to create events. They can only be captured if they are stored in your business data.
- event
A digital representation of a real-world occurrence that happened, at a single moment in time, to one or more objects connected to your business. For example, a customer paying an invoice, a user creating a purchase order for a vendor's product, or a warehouse shipping an order, are all individual events.
Every event involves one or more objects, and can be identified from the data held in those objects and their changes. For example, the event of shipping an order involves both the warehouse the order shipped from, and the order that was shipped. An event type is a definition of what attributes and relationships an event has.
- event to object relationship
A definition of the relationship of one event to one object in a business process. An event can have multiple event to object relationships with different objects. For example, when a customer places an order, the event of placing the order relates to the order, and also and to the customer.
- event type
A definition of an event that happens to one or more objects during a business process (such as shipping an order), what attributes it has, and its relationships to objects.
An event type (for example, BeginQualityInspection) is a definition of what an event looks like. An event is a single instance of that event type (for example, employee Jules begins the quality inspection of a test kit from a purchase order at 2pm on August 25).
- event log
A collection of events connected to a single object that’s built from the object-centric representation of a case. Event logs are created in a perspective to follow the events that happen to a single object during a process. They are compatible with apps and views that require case-centric representations. You can create many different event logs from the same perspective that is already populated with your data, and you can have multiple different event logs associated with a single lead object type.
- extraction
An extraction is a task that identifies and ingests relevant business data from the tables in your source system into the Celonis cloud.
- object
A digital representation of something connected to your business that exists in the real world. For example, a customer, a company, an order, or an invoice. An object type is a definition of what attributes and relationships an object has.
- object to object relationship
A definition of the relationship of one object to another object in a business process. For example, an invoice and a customer are related to each other.
- object type
A definition of an object in a business (such as an invoice), what attributes it has (such as a currency), and its relationships to other objects.
An object type (for example, PurchaseOrderItem) is a definition of what an object looks like. An object is a single instance of that object type (for example, a test kit that is part of a specific purchase order).
- object-centric data model
The object-centric data model consists of object types and event types, related and arranged to model what happens in business processes.
Celonis supplies a set of object types and event types for objects and events involved in common business processes. You can extend the object-centric data model by adding custom attributes and custom relationships to the Celonis object types, and creating custom object types and custom event types to model processes specific to your business.
- object-centric process mining
Object-centric process mining is an innovative method for visualizing and analyzing complex business operations. It involves representing the business as objects, events, and their relationships to explore the interconnectedness of business - how each object relates to others and is involved in multiple processes.
With an object-centric approach you can maintain a single model and a single set of data, and reuse your built objects and events to analyze multiple processes. You can also easily assemble objects, events, and their relationships into event logs to support case-centric applications.
- perspective
A set of object types, event types, and relationships to represent a particular business process or grouping for analysis. Perspectives pick out a subset of the object-centric data model containing the relevant relationships for the process you want to analyze, to create an unambiguous query context. Perspectives can be used for the same purposes in object-centric process mining that Data Models are in case-centric process mining.
- transformation
For object-centric process mining, a transformation is an SQL query that creates objects or events. A first group of transformations creates objects and changes based on business data ingested by extractions. A second group of transformations creates events based on those objects and changes.