That is all totally expected behavior. A String doesn't have an implicit BUSINESS_PROCESS scope, you need to specify that explicitly. And Seam tasks are atomic - they do not modify the process instance variables until the task completes successfully, at which time the task instance variables are copied back to the process instance. This is a Really Nice Thing. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4054985#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...