A transition is the passing from one state to another. A transition occurs when a specified event occurs and the process satisfies specified conditions. A transition has an owning state and it identifies the actions the process is to execute and may identify the target state that the process will be in once it executes the action. If the transition does not identify a target state (the target state is the same as the owning state) then it is an internal transition: a validation or mapping that needs to be done as part of the owning state execution.

A transition can have more than one defined action. For each of these actions, the process evaluates a set of guard conditions that determines whether the flow processor follows its normal flow or performs an alternative flow. The processor executes the transition's actions in the order in which they appear in the transition definition.

A transition can take place only if departure events are defined to enable a state to move to another state. Every state in a transaction flow must have a departure event for the flow to complete successfully.