 <p>I did not realize that the BaseEntity also had a <a href="http://symfony.com/doc/current/reference/constraints/Callback.html" rel="nofollow">callback validator</a>.</p> <pre><code>/** * @ORM\Entity ... * @Assert\Callback(callback="validate") */ abstract class Approval { ... /** * @param ExecutionContextInterface $context */ public function validate(ExecutionContextInterface $context) { // some logic messing with my AssertNotBlank constraints } } </code></pre> <p>I added what I wanted to do with the validation groups there as well. I suppose it should be possible to work with them as well.</p>