Process instances are the actual processes you will use in your application. They are instantiated from a process definition (which is the 'description' of your process). The error you get tells you that jbpm cannot find a process definition, so it cannot create any process instances. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4166675#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...