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Process Mining

Last updated Jul 23, 2025

Process simulation

What is process simulation?

With Process simulation you can compare the real-world behavior of your processes with the modeled version, revealing inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement. Process simulation allows you to simulate process changes using existing Process Mining data to gain insight into potential impacts on throughput times and overall performance.

You can evaluate the potential impact of process changes without any risk using Process simulation.

It offers the ability to model different scenarios—such as activity changes, activity removal, and throughput time changes—to understand how these modifications might influence your actual processes.

This helps you identify the most effective strategies for process improvement. Process simulation can help enhance process efficiency by identifying and adjusting areas of stagnation or delay, allowing for target optimization.

Important:

Always use simulated results as guidance, not as a certainty. Simulated results can inform decision-making, they do not guarantee a specific outcome.

Example use cases

The following list describes hypothetical scenarios for using Process simulation.

  • The activity Approve invoice has a high rework in an Invoice Processing process. What if I removed rework from this activity? How much time would it save me?

  • The Check contract conditions activity has a longer average throughput time, and I am missing SLA on this. How would my overall throughput time change if I decreased the activity time by 50%?

  • My process has different levels of approval. What if I completely removed the Approve invoice level 2 activity from my process? How would that impact the overal throughput time in the process?

Simulation dashboard

Use the Simulation dashboard to perform process simulations using predefined scenarios. The process graphs shows your entire process.

The following table describes the KPIs that are displayed on Simulation dashboard.

KPI

Description

Average throughput time

The average time it takes to execute the end-to-end process.

Simulation scenarios

The following table describes the available simulation scenarios.

Scenario

Description

Skip activity

Allows you to select one or more activities that you want to skip in the process.

Remove direct rework

Allows you to select one or more activities for which you want to remove direct rework.

Update activity throughput time

Allows you to select one or more activities for which you can simulate an updated throughput time. For each activity you can define the percentage to increase or decrease the throughput time.

Note:

The base throughput time for the activity is displayed and updated based on your selections.

Update edge throughput time

Allows you to select one or more edges for which you can simulate an updated throughput time. You can define an edge by selecting the From and To activity.

For each edge you can define the percentage to increase or decrease the throughput time.

Note: The base throughput time for the edge is displayed and updated based on your selections.

Tip:

You can select multiple predefined scenarios to define a simulation.

Performing a simulation

Note: It is recommended to use an appropriately sized dataset for the simulation. Using a dataset that is too small may lead to less accurate results.

To perform a simulation, follow these steps.

  1. Optionally, apply filters for the simulation.
    Tip: With filters, you can select subsets of data to simulate on, as well as fine-tune simulations on specific fields. This enables more focused and granular analysis of different variants of the process, helping you better understand variations in the process graph and make data-driven decisions for process optimization.
    Note: The Process cropping filter is not taken into account during a simulation. If you apply a Process cropping filter, it will be ignored.
  2. Select the New simulation option in the Simulation dashboard.
  3. Enter a name for the simulation in the Name field.

    1. Optionally, enter a short description for the simulation in the Description field.

  4. If multiple processes are available for your process app, select the process for which you want to perform the simulation.

  5. To add a scenario for the simulation, select + Add scenario.

  6. Select the predefined scenario you want to use and define the settings for the scenario.

  7. Repeat step 3 and step 4 if you want to add more scenarios to the simulation.

  8. Select Simulate.

Simulation results

The process graph is updated and shows the "as-is" process (real data) highlighted in blue versus the "what-if" process (simulated data) highlighted in purple. The Average throughput time KPI is updated to reflect the effect of the simulation on the average throughput time and provides a range of the simulated throughput time result. This enables you to see potential changes and effects of the different scenarios.

You can select different node and edge metrics to view the simulation results in the process graph based on different metrics. Refer to Working with process graphs for more information.

Tip: You can select the Show as-is process option to hide the "what-if" scenario and display only the actual "as-is" process in the process graph.
Note: Process simulation has limited data capacity. If the selected data range for simulation exceeds the capacity, only partial results are displayed. Note that these may not fully represent the actual outcomes of the simulation.
Trouble: If you encounter a failed simulation or any other issues while performing a simulation, feel free to contact UiPath® Customer Support for assistance.

Editing a simulation

You can edit a simulation, for example to add, edit, or remove a simulation scenario.

To edit a Simulation history, follow these steps.

  1. Select the More actions icon in the the Simulation dashboard to open the actions menu.

  2. Select Edit simulation from the menu.

  3. Edit the simulation as desired.

  4. Select Save as new.

The process graph is updated based on the changes you have made. The scenario is saved as a new scenario which you can access from the Simulation history.

Viewing the Simulation history

The Simulation history contains a list of all the simulations you defined for the process. This enables you to quickly navigate through simulations you have run before.

To view the Simulation history, follow these steps.

  1. Select the More actions icon in the the Simulation dashboard to open the actions menu.

  2. Select View all simulations from the menu.

The Simulation history dashboard is displayed. You can navigate to a previous simulation by selecting the simulation in the Simulation history.

Viewing process inefficiencies

Select Process inefficiencies from the actions menu to open the Process inefficiencies panel displaying any process inefficiencies identified for your process.

Process Mining helps you identify bottlenecks within your processes. As a business user, you can identify inefficiencies and automation opportunities by aiming to reduce process throughput time.

You can detect inefficiencies, such as low automation rates, directly from the process graph, which helps you uncover potential issues early.

Process inefficiencies provide quick insights into bottlenecks, rework, and low automation opportunities, enabling you to make data-driven improvements.

Note: Any filter aplied to the process graph is taken into account when process inefficencies are identified.

Ineffiency types

Tip: You can select the applicable process efficiencies from the Filter list, if you want to check particular types of process inefficiencies.
The following table describes the types of inefficiencies that can be identified.
InefficiencyDescription
BottleneckActivities that take double the average throughput time or activities that have highest throughput time.
Note: The top 5 bottlenecks are displayed.
Manual processingActivities that take double the average manual processing time or activities that have highest manual processing time.
Note:
The event_start field must be present in your dataset to calculate Manual processing inefficiencies.

The top 5 Manual processing inefficiencies are displayed.

Low automationActivities that have an automation rate less than the average automation rate.
ReworkActivities that have multiple occurrences in a single case.

Viewing details on a process inefficiency

Select the View details option on a process inefficiency card to automatically apply a filter connected to the activity of the identified process inefficiency, which enables you to dive deeper into analysis of problem areas in your process.

Exporting a simulation process graph

You can export the simulation process graph as an image.

To export the simulation graph, follow these steps.

  1. Select the More actions icon in the the Simulation dashboard to open the actions menu.

  2. Select Export -> Export as .png from the menu.

The process graph is downloaded and saved as a .PNG file to your computer. The exported .PNG file contains an image of the process graph as displayed.

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