The meaning of conformance

The reference model establishes the order in which functions should be executed. This order is not a simple linear order, however, because the model may contain splitting AND rules. The branches emanating from such rules may execute in parallel, so that there are many execution orders that are compatible with such a rule. Joining rules, on the other hand, are synchronization points: They indicate that execution of all functions in the incoming branches must have terminated before any function that follows a joining rule is executed.

The conformance check converts a process instance into a linear sequence of functions. It then determines whether each step in the functional sequence corresponds to the order of these functions in the reference model.

Furthermore, in order to be considered conformant, the last step must terminate in one of the end events modeled for the process. This implies that unfinished processes (that is, processes that require further imports to be completed) are most likely classified as non-conformant.