Process protocols are a set of guidelines or procedures that should be followed during a specific process or activity. Most of the time we can have to check several protocols for the same process flow. Each Protocol includes sets of rules or procedures for steps inside a process. 

The purpose would be to check different kind of Process violations like:

• Missing “mandatory” step: Required event is absent, like 1-2-4(Step 3 is missing).
• Process Step in wrong position: a Process Step exists however it happened in the wrong order. 

For example, a protocol calls for 1-2-3-4, but the reality was 1-2-4-3. In this case 3 is in the wrong position.

• Wrong Process Steps count: A Process Step should happen more or less times that specified in the protocol. 

For example if we have the Process Steps sequence  1-2-1-4 and the Protocols specify no repetition for the Process Step 1, so there’s a violation here!

• Process or Step Time violation: the specified time limit has been exceeded
  • Between two Process Steps 
  • For the entire Process
• Cost exceeded: the Process cost had exceeded a threshold

Checking the Process conformity is a common Process Mining activity. The purpose is to detect which variations of the process are identified as not compliant based on what was expected.