Yes why not? It all depends on what you are trying to do, but I've used derived/work records as AE state records before.

generally derived record are used when we dont want AE as restartable.
this can be used for containing temporary data which are refered during the AE run and are reinitialized after each commit.

i couldnt get it to work.
i must say, i am NEW to app eng.
so i created a regular sql table.
now i insert to that tbl but cant get the rows back.
app eng keep on asking me for state rec:
i do
%select(fld, fld,...)
select(fld,fld,...)

what am i doing wrong?