What is Process Conformance Checking?
Organizations design processes with a specific goal in mind: faster delivery, lower costs, compliance, customer satisfaction, or operational excellence. However, the way processes are designed is often very different from how they are actually executed in daily operations. This is where Process Conformance Checking delivers value.
Conformance checking is a core capability within process mining that compares the actual execution of processes captured in system event logs with the expected process model, governance rules, or standard operating procedures. It helps organizations identify where reality deviates from the intended process and understand the impact of those deviations.
Instead of relying on interviews, assumptions, or manual audits, conformance checking provides data-driven evidence about how compliant operational processes truly are.
What is Process Conformance Checking?Process conformance checking is the analytical practice of validating whether business processes are executed according to predefined rules, models, or policies.
In simple terms:
“Did the process happen the way it was supposed to happen?”
Conformance checking compares the expected process versus how the actual process was executed in real life. The result is a clear understanding of where operational execution deviates from organizational standards.
How Process Conformance Checking WorksProcess conformance checking works by comparing how a process was designed to operate with how it is actually executed in operational systems. The goal is to identify whether employees, departments, and systems follow the expected process path, business rules, approval flows, and compliance requirements.
At its core, conformance checking combines two elements:
- A representation of the designed process
- The actual process behavior captured in event data
The designed process is usually defined through a process visualization including taxonomy, SOPs, governance rules, BPMN diagrams, ERP workflows, or regulatory requirements. This defines how the organization orchestrates how the process should operate. For example, in a Procure-to-Pay process, the organization may require that:
- A purchase order must be created before goods are received
- An invoice must go through approval before payment
- Payments above a threshold require manager authorization
The second component is the actual process execution with data stored in enterprise systems such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, ServiceNow, Salesforce, or workflow applications. Every action performed in these systems leaves a digital footprint, these transactions are extracted and transformed into a so-called event log.
What can you analyze with Process Conformance Checking?The conformance checking engine compares the expected process models and compares them against the actual process paths. This comparison happens case by case and activity by activity.
It allows you to validate questions such as:
- Did all mandatory steps occur?
- Were activities executed in the correct order?
- Were approvals completed before downstream actions?
- Did unauthorized users perform activities?
- Did the process stay within SLA targets?
- Were control policies violated?
Ultimately, process conformance checking provides organizations with factual transparency into how operations truly function. It bridges the gap between process design and execution reality, enabling businesses to improve compliance, reduce operational risk, optimize performance, and build more resilient and standardized processes.
See the following video for Process Conformance Checking in Mavim in action:
