Techniques are described for using a design-time status schema model to describe the progress of a data object through a computing process. The status schema model includes status variables, processing actions and constraints for performing actions. The status schema model also includes preconditions for performing actions and a modeling element where the modeling element indicates a process step for a business process where the process step can be switched on and off at runtime. A precondition belonging to the process step identifies how a status affects whether an action is to be allowed to be performed at runtime by a data object node instance having the status. At runtime, the status schema model is used to control processing performed by, or on, an instance of a data object corresponding to the status schema model. The precondition is evaluated at runtime only if the process step is switched on.