BTW, it did occur to me that I could store parallel relationships (e.g. one relation for invited users and another for accepted members) and confine the state change code to one place in a single transaction. That's the cleanest thing I can think of so far and keeps everything in the EJB3 paradigm. I think it would work for me, but I don't think it scales well (e.g. multiple state possibilites). Superior alternatives welcomed. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3961596#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...