Skip to main content

Simulation

Simulation runs your process diagram as a discrete event simulation: cases enter the process, move through its activities, compete for resources, and produce statistics about time, cost, and throughput. You use it to test a process designProcess Design The discipline of explicitly modeling business processes to document, analyze, and optimize them. In Process360 Live, process design is the authoring side that complements mining's data-driven view. before changing the real process — where work queues up, what a change costs, and which variantVariant A unique trace pattern in an event log. Variant analysis ranks how often each path is taken and is the fastest way to spot process deviation. performs best.

Overview​

Everything related to one simulation lives in a Simulation Project object in the repository. The project contains the diagram you simulate, and every set of results you choose to keep is saved into it as a Simulation Results object. You can start a project from a blank diagram or create one from an existing diagram.

A simulation model is the diagram plus the simulation behavior you define on it:

  • Model-level properties — how long the simulation runs, the resources and schedules available, variables, scenarios, and messages. See Simulation properties.
  • Shape-level properties — what happens at each shape: where cases generate, how long a task takes, which resources it needs, and where cases go next. See Simulation shape properties.

When you run the model, the results open in the Simulation Statistics window. You can run it normally for results, or in traceTrace The ordered sequence of activities executed for a single case. Grouping cases by identical traces produces variants. mode to watch cases move through the diagram step by step. You compare saved runs side by side on the project's Simulation Project tab, against a baseline run you choose. Run a simulation walks through the full cycle.

Key concepts​

  • CaseCase A single instance of a process — for example, one customer order, invoice, or support ticket. An event log groups events by case ID. — one unit of work flowing through the process (one order, one ticket, one application). Statistics count cases and measure how they spend their time.
  • Generator — a shape property that creates cases: on a schedule, at an interval, from imported data, or when a message or variable change occurs.
  • Resource — the people or bots that do the work. Resources are grouped into types (for example, Person) inside organizations, and can follow schedules.
  • Variable — a named value the simulation reads and writes while it runs, scoped to the model, a process, an activityActivity A named step in a process (e.g. "Approve Invoice"). Each event in an event log records one activity occurrence for one case., a case, a scenario, or a resource.
  • Scenario — a named set of starting values for scenario variables, so you can rerun the same model under different assumptions and compare the outcomes.
  • Expression — a formula that computes a value anywhere a plain number would be too rigid, with functions for distributions, logic, text, and time. See Simulation expressions.

Availability and access​

  • Simulation is a cloud-only feature. It's on by default; a server administrator can turn the Process SimulationProcess Simulation Running a designed process model against scenarios (volumes, resources, durations) to predict performance before making real-world changes. feature flag off under Admin → Server Settings → Early Access.
  • Anyone who can open a simulation project can run it. Creating a simulation project, editing simulation properties, and saving results into the repository require a license that can create and edit web diagrams — see the license capability matrix. Users who can't save results can still export them to a file.
  • Your network must allow WebSocket connections — the diagram talks to the simulation engine over one while a simulation runs. If runs fail to start, see Simulation fails with a WebSocket connection error.

Related tasks & references​