The bean they specify in the pdf is session scoped: <managed-bean> | <managed-bean-name>infoBean</managed-bean-name> | <managed-bean-class>sample.InfoBean</managed-bean-class> | <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope> | <managed-property> | <property-name>skin</property-name> | <value>classic</value> | </managed-property> | </managed-bean> The expression you specify in web.xml must point to a session bean. Your user bean will not be initialized at login I suppose. You can create a session bean and store the skin name there. As I suggested before the SkinBean can be used for that purpose too. When your user logs in, you simply set the skin name of that bean. Then you will have that: anonymous wrote : the skin is initialized at the beginning of each request and the skin name is taken from the expression you specify in web.xml View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4079864#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...