BAM introduces a new type of dimension, the Progress Dimension. It allows aggregations of data within categories of progress status of activities. For example, the valid categories of status of a purchase order activity may be evaluating, fulfilling, shipped and denied. With this dimension, one can find out the total number or sales of purchase orders that are denied within a certain period.

In BizTalk 2006, the terms progress stage and milestone are used in place of child and sibling. A progress stage represents a transient state of an activity instance. On the other hand, once a milestone is reached for an activity instance, it would not be undone. Suppose you define for a purchase order instance and below is a representation of the report you want:

 Received, Approved, Shipped and Denied are progress milestones. Evaluating and Fulfilling are progress stages.