Method and apparatus for monitoring execution of a business process managed using a state machine

A state-based method and apparatus are disclosed for tracing and auditing a business process managed using a state machine. The disclosed system can selectively vary the tracing and auditing based, for example, upon the specific state within the business process or the identity of the organization or user associated with a given transaction. An organization can indicate whether any trace or audit information (or both) should be collected for the organization. In addition, the specific information that is collected for a given state in the state machine can be separately specified for a trace mode or audit mode. Trace and audit records can be tailored to the organization and situation at hand. The collected trace and audit information reflect the values associated with the object at well-defined points in time since they are associated with the states of the business process.