Thank you for your fast reply Ronald, By blah, I mean any kind of expression in my process definition: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> | <process-definition xmlns="urn:jbpm.org:jpdl-3.2" name="test2"> | | <start-state name="start-state1"> | <transition to="task-node1"></transition> | </start-state> | | <task-node name="task-node1"> | <task name="test2task"> | <assignment expression="blah"></assignment> | </task> | <transition to="end-state1"></transition> | </task-node> | | <end-state name="end-state1"></end-state> | | </process-definition> By seeing the "expression" in the definition, jBPM should call the identity component (am I right?) I've removed the identity mappings from my hibernate.cfg, and implemented AssignmentHandler myself (I also extended the ExpressionAssignmentHandler but it didn't help either). As a result, I expect jBPM to call my assignmentHandler instead of identity's. In my assignment handler, I set the assignable's actorId to 12 (which is defined in the User table of the DB, although I know that this table is used by the Identity component) It seems that while creating a new instance of task, jBPM should call my assignment handler and not to use the identity component. so, it should returns a user with id 12, but it throws an identity exception thnx --Sherry View the original post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4233529#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.org/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...