I found the jBPM Designer to be of limited value relative to the time it took to get it installed and working. I created a diagram of the process flow using it, but then abandoned the tool once the initial XML stubs were in place. After that, using an editor to modify the processdefinition.xml file seemed like the faster way to go. For my next workflow, I won't use the tool at all. I'll just create the XML with an editor.
I did run a completed processdefinition file through the designer to reverse engineer a diagram which worked out nicely for documentation purposes.
