Tom, You didn't have to put names on process definitions, nodes, etc., but you did. Why? - because people have external handles on these things (in these definition cases, mostly concepts in their brains) by which they want/need to refer to the definition elements. In the process instance case, the "business key" frequently is some key value that also is externally held (either mentally or by another system) by which folks need to prioritize their tasks, monitor, or intervene in. Usually it refers to some variable that is the "subject" of the workflow. In my experience, folks nearly always want this in some form. If you are concerned about requiring folks to invent a key, you could defaullt it to a combination of definition and date/time. I have a feeling there's some much deeper divergence in intent here... this is so obvious that it would have to be obvious to you unless we were starting from very different places. I don't know what the deeper difference is, though... Thanks, -Ed Staub View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4016404#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...