ADONIS Meets BI: Transforming Process Data into Actionable Insights

In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations generate vast amounts of process data through their BPM (Business Process Management) platforms. However, collecting data is just the first step – the real challenge lies in transforming this raw information into meaningful insights that drive strategic decision-making.

Learn in this blog how Business Intelligence (BI) can help you overcome this challenge. Discover how integrating BI tools with BPM solutions like ADONIS, companies can extract powerful, data-driven insights, enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, and strengthening their competitive edge. This integration allows organizations to move beyond static process models and leverage dynamic, real-time analytics for smarter decision-making.

Blending BI and BPM unlocks a range of strategic advantages:

• 360° Process Visibility: Spot inefficiencies, delays, and deviations at a glance.

• Informed Decision-Making: Use dashboards and metrics to support continuous improvement.

• Cross-Team Collaboration: Break down silos with shared, transparent insights.

• Cost & Time Savings: Identify what to optimize and why, with data to back it up.

Hint: Read more about how Business Intelligence supercharges BPM in our blog.

ADONIS stands out by offering a suite of built-in analytics and integration options that make extracting and visualizing process data both straightforward and robust. Here’s a closer look at the key use cases:

ADONIS provides a powerful set of built-in analytics through two key areas: Insights (model-specific) and Analyse (cross-model dashboards). Together, they give users a structured, visual way to monitor and optimize processes without needing complex external setups.

Insights – Process-Specific Analytics

Available directly within each process or object, the Insights tab offers quick, contextual information to support daily process work. For example:

• RACI Matrix
  Automatically displays roles and responsibilities for each process step, making ownership and collaboration transparent.

• Process Assessment Gauges
  Visual dials show how the process performs across key dimensions like cost efficiency, cycle time, and compliance.

• Risk & Control Overview
  Highlights risks tied to the process, including their likelihood, impact, and associated controls – supporting better risk mitigation.

Process Assessment & Risks and Control Overview in ADONIS

Analyse – Cross-Process Dashboards

This section allows users to step back and analyse trends across multiple processes or organizational areas. It includes dashboards such as:

• Process Potential Radar Chart
  Compares process maturity and potential across areas like quality, IT support, and customer satisfaction.

• Initiatives Dashboard
  Tracks ongoing process improvement projects and their progress organization-wide.

• Compliance Overview
  Centralized view of control objectives and their maturity levels across different processes.

Together, these built-in analytics help users stay informed, identify gaps, and continuously improve performance – all within ADONIS.

Initiatives Dashboard in ADONIS

With ADONIS’s process mining capabilities, businesses can uncover inefficiencies in workflows, analyse bottlenecks, and pinpoint the root causes of delays. These insights enable continuous process optimization based on real-time operational data. Additionally, process mining can identify non-conformities – instances where activities deviate from expected or regulatory standards. Detecting these inconsistencies helps organizations ensure compliance, improve quality management, and proactively mitigate risks.

Hint: Discover more about our integrated solution for Process Mining.

ADONIS can seamlessly be integrated with leading BI platforms such as Microsoft Power BI or Qlik. By feeding process data into these visualization tools, organizations can create dynamic dashboards that reveal trends, exceptions, and improvement opportunities at a glance.

Example of a Power BI dashboard filled with ADONIS data

At first glance integrating BI with BPM may seem complex – but it doesn’t have to be. A structured, step-by-step approach makes the process easier and transparent:

The Integration Process explained – Step by Step

In the first step, clearly outline the goals of the integration.

Are you aiming to …

• reduce process cycle times?
• Identify cost-saving opportunities?
• Improve compliance monitoring?

Clear goals ensure that the success of the integration can be measured effectively.

Choose a BI platform that aligns with your organization’s needs (e.g., Power BI, Qlik). Confirm that it supports integration via REST APIs, as used by ADONIS.

Identify the specific types of metadata you need from ADONIS for your analysis. These typically fall into three main categories:

• Structural Metadata – e.g., process models, task sequences, responsibilities and process hierarchies.

• Attribute-Based Metadata – such as priority levels, process owners, compliance classifications, and tags like “automation potential” (ENUM-type attributes).

• Performance Metadata – including KPIs (defined in ADONIS), estimated cycle times, cost drivers, and Service Level Agreement (SLA) values.

When selecting what to export, consider values like:

• Estimated cycle time per process step

• SLA target duration per task

• Assigned roles (e.g., “Credit Analyst”, “Risk Manager”)

• ENUM fields such as:

  • Automation Potential (e.g., “High”, “Medium”, “Low”)

  • Risk Level (e.g., “Critical”, “Moderate”)

  • Control Type (e.g., “Preventive”, “Detective”)

Set up the connection between ADONIS and your BI platform using the available REST API.

In this step:

• Define API queries to pull specific metadata from ADONIS

• Set up secure endpoints and data refresh logic for recurring access

• Consider authentication and data governance policies

Within your BI tool, enhance the modeled process data from ADONIS by integrating execution data from operational systems (e.g., ERP, CRM, HR). This provides a powerful comparison between how processes are designed and how they actually run.

Examples:

• Cycle Time Analysis:

  • Match modeled durations or SLA targets (from ADONIS) with actual timestamps from systems like SAP or Salesforce:

    • Start and end timestamps of a purchase order

    • Time between approval and shipment

    • Delay between invoice generation and payment

• Resource Performance:

  • Enrich role assignments from ADONIS with:

    • HR data like staff availability, shift times, or team capacity

    • Absence/leave records to understand handover delays or seasonal slowdowns

• Compliance Monitoring:

  • Join risk and control assignments from ADONIS with incident logs or audit trails:

    • Map critical controls to actual incident counts

    • Check if high-risk tasks correlate with missed deadlines or policy violations

Hint: Dive deeper into the topic of Compliance monitoring and learn how to keep track of your compliance while strengthening integrity and driving business performance.

Before full deployment, ensure the quality and accuracy of your insights by:

• Cross-checking KPI results with expected baselines or known benchmarks. For example:

  • Is the modeled loan approval time aligned with historical average durations?

  • Does the automation potential marked in ADONIS match actual execution time savings?

• Reviewing dashboards with process owners to confirm:

  • Correct mappings between process models and operational steps

  • Proper use of filters, groupings, and time ranges

• Iterating on visualizations based on feedback:

  • Maybe SLA violations are better visualized as heatmaps per region

  • Or approval delays are clearer when grouped by role instead of department

To get the most out of your BI integration with ADONIS, a thoughtful rollout strategy is key. The following best practices will help ensure a smooth implementation and long-term success.

• Start Small & Scale Up: Roll out BI features for one or two high-impact processes first. Gradual implementation lets you gather feedback and refine the approach before a larger deployment.
• Engage Stakeholders Early: Include process owner, department heads, IT specialists, and end-users from the beginning to ensure a smooth integration.
• Continuous Training: Regularly train your team on both ADONIS features and BI tools. Well-informed employees are more likely to leverage data effectively.
• Monitor & Optimize: Keep track of and review your newly integrated dashboards over time, as they provide valuable insights into what’s working well and highlight areas that need improvement.

To illustrate the key aspects in a tangible way, we use the fictional industrial manufacturing company “AeroTech Components” to show how theoretical concepts can be applied in practice.

AeroTech Components is a mid-sized European manufacturer of aerospace parts. Facing increasing regulatory pressure and inefficient internal processes, they needed a way to better understand and improve how their business operated – especially around compliance, production cycle times, and documentation accuracy.

• Lack of Predictive Insight: Although AeroTech had SOPs modeled in ADONIS, they were unable to forecast the impact of process changes or delays.

• Inconsistent Process Execution: Different departments handled tasks inconsistently, despite having a centralized BPM system.

• Audit Pressure: Internal audits required extensive manual preparation due to outdated or incomplete documentation.

To address process inefficiencies and compliance challenges, AeroTech launched a business intelligence–driven improvement initiative by integrating ADONIS with Power BI via REST APIs. This allowed them to combine structured process metadata from ADONIS with execution data from operational systems such as ERP and HR, enabling targeted analysis and continuous optimization.

Compare AS-IS vs. TO-BE Process Models (in ADONIS)

• AeroTech modeled both current (AS-IS) and improved (TO-BE) processes directly within ADONIS.

• Using the ADONIS simulation tool, they tested the impact of process changes – such as reducing approval steps or reassigning responsibilities.

• Simulation results included KPIs such as average cycle time, cost, and resource utilization.

• These results were exported and visualized in Power BI for side-by-side comparison and stakeholder alignment.

Visualize Operational Performance

• Metadata from ADONIS – such as modeled cycle times, SLA targets, assigned roles, and ENUM attributes (e.g., automation potential) – was linked with execution data from ERP systems.

• Power BI dashboards were developed to visualize metrics such as:

  • Average approval time per department

  • Delays at key handover points (e.g., between engineering and quality assurance)

  • Frequency of document updates across process stages

• This enabled real-time monitoring of operational performance versus modeled expectations.

Discover Root Causes of Process Delays

• AeroTech identified recurring delays in engineering change requests, especially in Q2.

• By combining ADONIS role assignments with HR data (e.g., leave calendars), they found that delays coincided with annual staff absences.

• As a result, the company restructured team responsibilities and introduced cross-training to ensure adequate coverage during critical periods.

• Audit Readiness: Reduced audit preparation time by centralizing and maintaining process documentation in ADONIS.

• Cycle Time Reduction: Resolved bottlenecks and reduced approval times through simulation and real execution analysis.

• Predictive Planning: Used TO-BE process simulations to forecast the impact of proposed changes before implementation.

• Compliance Control: Identified deviations from SOPs using conformance analysis and implemented targeted corrective actions.

• Decision Support: Enabled managers to monitor KPIs in interactive dashboards that combined modeled expectations with real operational data.

In conclusion, simply collecting process data is not enough. True value is realized when organizations transform raw data into actionable insights that drive strategic decisions and boost operational efficiency. By integrating BI with BPM solutions like ADONIS, companies can uncover inefficiencies, anticipate market shifts, and fine-tune operations using real-time analytics. This comprehensive approach empowers teams to make evidence-based decisions, optimize workflows, and foster a culture of continuous improvement – ensuring they remain agile and competitive in an ever-changing market.