jbpm has the notion of a businesskey, which corresponds to option 3. That is also what we use internally View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4143805#4143805 Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&p=4143805