Yes, the observer sub-process(es) are in a waiting state, doing nothing but waiting for all affected items to get past a certain state (mail delivered). Initially i guess you could say that the observer sub-process has not started yet, because the wait state is the first state in that branch, so it is a technicality whether we first branch and then wait, or if we wait before the branch. However later in the process another mail notification is needed when another state completes on the observer side, with the same requirement to wait for all affected parties to be notified, so I decided to fork and wait for the first mailing as well to keep things similar. A possible sequence of events: 1 observer, 2 parties Branch -Observer: wait for all parties to be notified -Party1: send mail to party1 -Party2 send mail to party2 -Party1: mail could not be delivered, resend mail -Party2: mail was delivered -Party1: mail was delivered -Observer comes out of wait state, goes to anotherimportantbusinessstep state -Observer completes anotherimportantbusinessstep, goes to wait state because parties need notification -Party1: send mail2 to party1 -Party2 send mail2 to party2 -Party2: mail2 was delivered -Party1: mail2 was delivered - Observer finishes wait state, goes into another business state - somewhere near the end of the process branches join - whole process completes The reason to include such steps for the mailing is because our customer wants to track the physical mailing process (print document, take it to the post office, etc), so they are task notes in a "todo list". Same with most of the observer states, that are real world tasks that are tracked by the system. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4176323#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...