1. A computer program product tangibly embodied in an computer readable medium for controlling actions in a computer-based process, the computer program product comprising: a status schema model defined at design-time, stored in a computer-readable medium and including a precondition identifying 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, and instructions stored in a computer-readable medium that, when executed, perform operations comprising: creating a status schema instance for a particular data object node instance being used in a computer-based process, the status schema instance corresponding to the status schema model and including a status variable having an inhibiting status value, and the data object node instance including values for variables and methods capable of being performed by the data object node instance; determining whether the data object node instance includes a value for a status variable that corresponds to the inhibiting status value of the status variable of the status schema model; based on a determination that the data object node instance includes a value for a status variable that corresponds to the inhibiting status value of the status variable of the status schema model, prohibiting actions to be performed by the data object node instance other than an action explicitly permitted by the inhibiting status value.