Abstract
Conformance checking is the field of process mining concerned with the monitoring and reporting of discrepancies between event logs and process models. An often overlooked issue is the entry barrier for conformance checking techniques. On the one hand, constraint-checking methods provide intuitive conformance diagnostics, yet require a significant manual effort and expertise from the users to elicit the corresponding constraints. On the other hand, procedurally-oriented techniques, e.g., alignments, provide low-level conformance results that require a significant interpretation effort from the end-user. Therefore, in this paper, we propose to combine the best of both worlds and present an automated method to generate conformance diagnostics in the form of higher-level behavioral patterns, derived from a procedural model. The approach is implemented as a standalone tool and evaluated against real-life datasets, where it is shown to explain nearly all deviations with good scalability.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The order is specific to the template library and hence configured by the tool provider/vendor.
- 2.
Evaluation code is available at https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10824798.
References
Adriansyah, A., van Dongen, B.F., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Conformance checking using cost-based fitness analysis. In: 15th International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference, pp. 55–64 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1109/EDOC.2011.12
Adriansyah, A., van Dongen, B.F., Zannone, N.: Controlling break-the-glass through alignment. In: International Conference on Social Computing, SocialCom 2013, pp. 606–611. IEEE (2013). https://doi.org/10.1109/SocialCom.2013.91
Alman, A., Di Ciccio, C., Haas, D., Maggi, F.M., Nolte, A.: Rule mining with RuM. In: 2nd International Conference on Process Mining, ICPM 2020, Padua, Italy, pp. 121–128. IEEE (2020). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICPM49681.2020.00027
Berti, A., van Zelst, S.J., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Process Mining for Python (PM4Py): bridging the gap between process- and data science. CoRR abs/1905.06169 (2019). http://arxiv.org/abs/1905.06169
Desel, J., Esparza, J.: Free Choice Petri Nets. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1995)
Di Ciccio, C., Maggi, F.M., Montali, M., Mendling, J.: Resolving inconsistencies and redundancies in declarative process models. Inf. Syst. 64, 425–446 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2016.09.005
Di Ciccio, C., Maggi, F.M., Montali, M., Mendling, J.: On the relevance of a business constraint to an event log. Inf. Syst. 78, 144–161 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2018.01.011
Dijkman, R.M., Dumas, M., Ouyang, C.: Semantics and analysis of business process models in BPMN. Inf. Softw. Technol. 50(12), 1281–1294 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2008.02.006
van Dongen, B.F.: BPI Challenge 2015 (2015). https://doi.org/10.4121/UUID:31A308EF-C844-48DA-948C-305D167A0EC1
Esparza, J., Blondin, M.: Automata Theory: An Algorithmic Approach. MIT Press, Cambridge (2023)
Evans, C., Robson, E.W.: automata: a Python package for simulating and manipulating automata. J. Open Source Softw. 8(91), 5759 (2023). https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.05759
García-Bañuelos, L., van Beest, N., Dumas, M., Rosa, M.L., Mertens, W.: Complete and interpretable conformance checking of business processes. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 44(3), 262–290 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2017.2668418
Goulart Rocha, E., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Precision-guided minimization of arbitrary declarative process models. In: van der Aa, H., Bork, D., Schmidt, R., Sturm, A. (eds.) BPMDS EMMSAD 2024. LNBIP, vol. 511, pp. 48–56. Springer, Cham (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61007-3_5
Keller, G., Teufel, T.: SAP R/3 Process-Oriented Implementation: Iterative Process Prototyping. SAP Databases. Addison Wesley Longman, Boston (1998)
Leemans, S.J.J., Fahland, D., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Discovering block-structured process models from event logs containing infrequent behaviour. In: Lohmann, N., Song, M., Wohed, P. (eds.) BPM 2013. LNBIP, vol. 171, pp. 66–78. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06257-0_6
Leemans, S.J.J., Fahland, D., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Scalable process discovery and conformance checking. Softw. Syst. Model. 17(2), 599–631 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/S10270-016-0545-X
de Leoni, M., Maggi, F.M., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Aligning event logs and declarative process models for conformance checking. In: Barros, A., Gal, A., Kindler, E. (eds.) BPM 2012. LNCS, vol. 7481, pp. 82–97. Springer, Heidelberg (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32885-5_6
de Leoni, M., Mannhardt, F.: Road traffic fine management process (2015). https://doi.org/10.4121/uuid:270fd440-1057-4fb9-89a9-b699b47990f5
Maggi, F.M., Bose, R.P.J.C., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Efficient discovery of understandable declarative process models from event logs. In: Ralyté, J., Franch, X., Brinkkemper, S., Wrycza, S. (eds.) CAiSE 2012. LNCS, vol. 7328, pp. 270–285. Springer, Heidelberg (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31095-9_18
Mannhardt, F., de Leoni, M., Reijers, H.A., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Balanced multi-perspective checking of process conformance. Computing 98(4), 407–437 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-015-0441-1
Mozafari Mehr, A.S., de Carvalho, R.M., van Dongen, B.F.: Explainable conformance checking: understanding patterns of anomalous behavior. Eng. Appl. Artif. Intell. 126, 106827 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2023.106827
Munoz-Gama, J., Carmona, J., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Single-entry single-exit decomposed conformance checking. Inf. Syst. 46, 102–122 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2014.04.003
Murata, T.: Petri nets: properties, analysis and applications. Proc. IEEE 77(4), 541–580 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1109/5.24143
Peled, D.A., Wilke, T.: Stutter-invariant temporal properties are expressible without the next-time operator. Inf. Process. Lett. 63(5), 243–246 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-0190(97)00133-6
Pesic, M., Schonenberg, H., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: DECLARE: full support for loosely-structured processes. In: 11th International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference, pp. 287–300 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1109/EDOC.2007.14
Ramezani, E., Fahland, D., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Diagnostic information in compliance checking. Technical report (2012)
Reijers, H.A., Slaats, T., Stahl, C.: Declarative modeling–an academic dream or the future for BPM? In: Daniel, F., Wang, J., Weber, B. (eds.) BPM 2013. LNCS, vol. 8094, pp. 307–322. Springer, Heidelberg (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40176-3_26
Rozinat, A., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Conformance checking of processes based on monitoring real behavior. Inf. Syst. 33(1), 64–95 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2007.07.001
Weidlich, M., Polyvyanyy, A., Desai, N., Mendling, J., Weske, M.: Process compliance analysis based on behavioural profiles. Inf. Syst. 36(7), 1009–1025 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2011.04.002
Acknowledgements
We thank the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Stiftung for supporting our research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Goulart Rocha, E., van Zelst, S.J., van der Aalst, W.M.P. (2024). Mining Behavioral Patterns for Conformance Diagnostics. In: Marrella, A., Resinas, M., Jans, M., Rosemann, M. (eds) Business Process Management. BPM 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14940. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70396-6_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70396-6_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-70395-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-70396-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)