Objects

Object types serve as the structural backbone of Object-Centric Process Mining (OCPM) by acting as digital twins of real-world business entities.

Custom object types allow you to map non-standard business entities, such as custom order types, specialized invoices, or regional employee profiles, directly into the Celonis Platform. This ensures your data model accurately mirrors your unique operational ecosystem, allowing you to isolate and surface systemic process inefficiencies that out-of-the-box configurations miss.

Every object is governed by an Object Type, which defines:

Identity: How the object is uniquely identified.
Attributes: The specific properties that describe it.
Relationships: How it connects to events and other objects.

The platform provides two event-modeling pathways based on the source data architecture:

Modeling option	Required inputs	Primary use case
From scratch	Manual input of Object Type Name, unique ID, attributes, and relationships.	Use to manually construct entirely new or custom process entities when no matching relational source tables exist in your data pool. See: Creating custom object types from scratch.
Importing from table	An active source table (or tables) with an established data connection in a Data Pool.	Use when migrating existing relational source infrastructure (such as SAP or Oracle tables). Source columns transform into attributes, foreign keys suggest object relationships, and Celonis generates the underlying transformation scripts automatically. Extend these base object types post-import with custom attributes as your process scope scales. See: Importing custom object types from a table.

Modeling option

Required inputs

Primary use case

From scratch

Manual input of Object Type Name, unique ID, attributes, and relationships.

Use to manually construct entirely new or custom process entities when no matching relational source tables exist in your data pool.

See: Creating custom object types from scratch.

Importing from table

An active source table (or tables) with an established data connection in a Data Pool.

Use when migrating existing relational source infrastructure (such as SAP or Oracle tables). Source columns transform into attributes, foreign keys suggest object relationships, and Celonis generates the underlying transformation scripts automatically. Extend these base object types post-import with custom attributes as your process scope scales.

See: Importing custom object types from a table.

Creating custom object types from scratch

Custom object types model unique business entities not captured by standard, out-of-the-box Celonis process models.

For example, if you are analyzing a logistics workflow, use the Objects and Events dashboard to build a custom "Logistics_Vehicle" object type to track your specific physical fleet assets, delivery capacities, and regional operational workflows.

Before you begin

Verify that your user profile has administrator permissions or permissions to edit data models within the Celonis platform.

Creating custom objects from scratch

To create a custom object type from scratch using the Objects and Events dashboard:

Click Objects.
Click Create - Model from scratch.
Complete the object type configuration fields in the properties panel:
- Name: Enter a unique, alphanumeric identifier up to 40 characters to establish the object type in the database (for example, enter Logistics_Vehicle to track your physical fleet assets). Do not use spaces or special characters.
- Color: Select a distinct display color to isolate this asset class visually within your process model graph view, making it easy to distinguish fleet tracking from standard order flows.
- Description: Enter an operational summary visible only in the table view (for example, enter Primary distribution fleet vehicles, including heavy trucks and refrigerated vans).
- Tags: Categorize this object to organize your data model navigation.
  - Celonis processes: Choose from existing tags used as part of Celonis provided processes.
  - Custom processes: Enter text to create a new tag or select from existing tags. For example, under Custom processes, enter Fleet_Operations to group it alongside related transit and regional delivery workflows.
- Object attributes: Configure properties to define your vehicle profiles and enable downstream filtering. Click Add Attribute to create your core schema parameters:
  For example:
  - Add vehicle_id as a string to serve as your unique alphanumeric asset tracker (for example, TRUCK-084).
  - Add max_payload_kg as a long integer to record the maximum weight capacity (for example, 12500), allowing you to analyze cargo utilization efficiency.
  - Add is_refrigerated as a Boolean (True or False) to flag cold-chain transport capabilities for delivery bottleneck analysis.
  - Add purchase_date as a datetime timestamp to track when the asset was commissioned into service.
Click Save.
Once saved, deploy the custom object type to the development environment to make it available for transformations and analysis.
See: Versioning and deploying OCDM.

Extending or editing existing objects and events

Custom object types and event types can be extended over time by adding attributes and relationships, including links to existing Celonis objects and events. Object and event extensions are available after publishing in the current environment. A production deployment is only required if the analysis runs in production.

To extend or edit an existing object or event:

From the dashboard, click Objects / Events.
Select the object or event you want to extend, opening the configuration panel.
Make the necessary updates to the object or event, using the information provided in the above procedures.
Click Save.
Optional: If the object or event extension is required in your production environment, click Deploy.
For more information about versioning and deployment, see: Versioning and deploying OCDM.