iDOCEM

In the business process lifecycle, models can be approached from two perspectives: on the one hand, models are used to create systems in the design phase, and on the other hand, systems in use produce (event) logs that are used to discover the models representing the structure of the systems. These discovered models can be the starting point of a new cycle of analysis, redesign, implementation, etc. Therefore, proper logging of implemented processes in line with system design is a critical element for process discovery. Recently, the consideration of the integration of data and process aspects has seen a surge in interest in both the model-for-design domain as in the automated-model-discovery domain. However, it seems that these domains use different conceptualizations of data/object-aware systems. A definition of how the captured event logs are related to the structure of the global system they are extracted from or are trying to discover is still missing. Especially the concept of an event needs to be aligned, as this is the main concept that the domains have in common. This paper investigates the concepts and terminology used in the different phases of the business process lifecycle: the design phase, the implementation phase (including the implementation of logging) and the discovery phase. The paper contains an extensive running example that is used to illustrate five misalignment issues. The main contribution of this paper is a meta-model that presents a unified terminology for modelling both domains and is demonstrated using the running example. The paper also shows how the concepts of iDOCEM relate to the concepts of a conceptual modelling approach and several event logging formats. iDOCEM is validated with the implementation of a log generator for the running case, demonstrating the feasibility of generating DOCEL-compliant logs from an application.