Celonis Certification Exams: Developed by process experts for process experts

Process mining and execution management professionals have a new way to demonstrate their process proficiency–one created by process experts for process experts.

Launched in January, Celonis Certification Exams are developed with direct contributions from Celonis customers, partners and internal subject matter experts. The exams let technical and non-technical professionals alike validate and showcase their Celonis skills and knowledge.

“Obtaining a certification can be an important career milestone,” said David Jeggle, Head of Celonis Process Mining Academy. “Celonis Certification Exams give individuals the opportunity to display their Celonis expertise and differentiate themselves among process professionals.”

The first Certification Exam, Data Analyst Certification Exam, went live in January and the Data Engineer Certification Exam was made available in June. Celonis Academy plans to release more exams in 2023.

Developed for process professionals by process professionals

Celonis has a long history of educating, enabling and connecting people from around the globe about all things related to process mining and execution management. Celonis Academy offers over 300 courses and 2,000 hours of free, online training. Through the Celonis Academic Alliance, the company partners with educational institutions to train the next generation of process miners and foster process innovation. And Celopeers, the Celonis online community, helps connect Celonis users to each other.

In developing the new Certification Exams, the Academy team not only pulled from this deep pool of knowledge but also Celonis customers, ecosystem partners and internal subject matter experts (SMEs).

Joost Hermans, COO & Co-founder of Apolix, was one of the external experts that the Academy team worked with. Apolix is a process mining consultancy and a Platinum Celonis Service Partner based in the Netherlands. Being on the front lines of process mining and digital transformation gives Hermans and the Apolix team unique insights into the skills and knowledge needed to drive value with Celonis.

Irina Tentina was another SME who helped develop the first Celonis Academy exams. Tentina is a process mining expert with DataLane, a process mining consultancy and Celonis Platinum Partner with offices in The Netherlands, Italy and Germany. She has experience implementing end-to-end process mining projects and digital transformation programs. In addition to being the lead of DataLane's Process Mining Academy, Tentina also supports clients to create their own Center of Excellence (CoE) and set up the supportive processes needed for large scale process mining initiatives.

"We are happy to have contributed to the creation of Celonis’ first Certification Exam for customers, which will be a great addition to our internal Celonis training journey," said a representative of ALDI SOUTH. "The new the Celonis Certification Program enables us to validate the expertise of our internal Celonis users and helps us defining their individual professional development plans — from data engineering and building studio EMS apps for our Celonis CoE resources, to understanding and using Celonis process mining analyses and driving process excellence for our business end-users," they added.

Sara Gholampour, Senior Technical Training Manager with Celonis Academy, told me that each exam can take several weeks to months to create and requires hundreds of person hours.

“Because certifications can be used for hiring and promotion decisions, exams must be valid, reliable and fair,” Gholampour said. “We developed the Celonis Certification Exams using a rigorous process built on industry standards and certification exam development best practices.”

Sara Ghalampour (center) and the Celonis Academy Team working at the company's Madrid office.

The process that Celonis uses to create its Certification Exams has multiple stages and SMEs play a critical role throughout.

1. Job Task Analysis: Before a single item (i.e. question) is written, the exam team performs a Job Task Analysis (JTA) to identify the knowledge and skills needed to perform the job role for which the certification is being designed. The analysis can be conducted using a survey distributed to external process professionals and internal SMEs or a workshop with both internal and external SMEs.

2. Blueprint: The blueprint is the foundation on which the exam is built. The knowledge and skills identified as necessary during the JTA are grouped into domains, and each piece of knowledge or skill becomes an objective. The domains are weighted for importance and the number of items per objective is determined. With this information in hand, the team creates an exam-specific guide, which may be shared with internal and external SMEs for feedback.

3. Item Writing: After the blueprint is developed, subject matter experts write the exam items. Writing can be done either individually or during multiple live workshops and takes place using secure software to protect the exam integrity. Item writers are required to be educated on item writing standards and items must reflect best practices.

4. Item Review: SMEs check each item for clarity, appropriateness, fairness to native and non-native speakers and people of different backgrounds. Additionally, items go through several rounds of technical review by SMEs. The review can be conducted individually by SMEs or in a workshop setting.

5. Beta Exam: Practitioners of varying experience levels take the beta exam, which contains all the proposed exam items (even extra ones), using secure exam software. Depending on the results, the team will determine if new items should be written for a specific objective or if any items should be excluded from the final exam.

6. Standard Setting: Using the results of the beta exam and discussions with SMEs on minimally qualified candidates, the team determines a cutscore (passing score) for the exam.

7. Live Exam: After weeks to months of effort, the exam is released and participants can take the exam, receiving a simple “pass or fail” result upon completion. Exams are delivered and proctored through a secure exam provider.

8. Item Refresh: The Celonis Certifications Team continuously monitors the performance of each exam and individual exam items. As exam content becomes outdated, it is replaced. Exams are also periodically updated to maintain their integrity.

Now that you know how Celonis Certification Exams are created, let’s take a detailed look at the first one, the Data Analyst Certification Exam.

Details: Data Analyst Certification Exam

The Celonis Data Analyst Certification Exam evaluates an individual’s ability to create process analyses, apps and automations using Celonis Studio. The Exam is designed for process professionals with at least 6 months of hands-on experience with Celonis Studio.

To successfully complete the exam, candidates should be able to gather and understand business requirements, collaborate with stakeholders and develop Celonis Studio solutions that drive business value. Celonis recommends that candidates have at least 1 year of experience in a similar role.

Upon successful completion of the exam, participants will earn the Celonis Certified Data Analyst badge. Celonis digital badges allow learners to verify their Celonis Academy achievements–and as I’ve written about previously, could be some of the hottest certs for tech pros.

To learn more about this and other Celonis Certification Exams, you can visit the Celonis Certifications and Data Analyst Certification Exam pages. There you will find links to the Celonis Certification Program Guide, the official Program Agreement and handy FAQs.

Celonis Academy: Leading the way in process mining and execution management education

Celonis Academy helps professionals learn the process mining, process management, and execution management skills that today’s employers are looking for…all online and all for free. For more information on Celonis Academy and the free, on-demand training courses and learning material available from Celonis, check out the following resources:

• Top process mining and execution management training courses of 2022

• Celonis Academy wins Gold Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award for second year running

• Sustainability training: Free online courses from Celonis Academy

• Learn PQL with these free online courses from Celonis Academy

• These Celonis Digital Badges could be among the hottest new credentials for tech pros

• API Automation: How Make and Celonis engineering teams are building consumer-ready apps at enterprise scale

• Process Mining: From Theory to Execution (free 10-hour, on-demand course developed by Celonis and the Process and Data Science (PADS) group)

• What is Task Mining? (free 4-min video introduction to task mining)

• Celopeers job market message board

Updated March 16, 2023: References to the Data Analyst Certification Exam were updated to reflect a naming change.

Updated July 5, 2023: Added information about and a link to the Data Engineer Certification Exam.

Bill Detwiler

Editor, Technical Content & Ecosystem

Bill Detwiler is Editor for Technical Content and Ecosystem at Celonis. He is the former Editor in Chief of TechRepublic, where he hosted the Dynamic Developer podcast and Cracking Open, CNET’s popular online show. Bill is an award-winning journalist, who’s covered the tech industry for more than two decades. Prior his career in the software industry and tech media, he was an IT professional in the social research and energy industries.