There are a couple of ways to approach this. I see you posted in the Yii forum so I assume you've searched around there too but in case you haven't:
What I have done is (just for a simple 2-step ActiveRecord form) taken a single action and divided it up into conditional blocks based on the button name, which Yii POSTs on a form submit (note: doesn't work with ajax submits). Then, depending on which button was hit I render the correct form and set the correct scenario on my model for validation purposes.
A hidden "step" field like you have could serve the same purpose as the checking the submitButton name. I would perhaps save the "step" into the form state instead of adding a hidden field though, but either would be fine.
Some people use the stateful activeForm attribute to save the data from a single step in the wizard, or you can use the session, or even save to a temp database table. In my completely untested example below I am using a the stateful form functionality.
Here is an example of what I basically did for an ActiveRecord form. This goes in the "actionCreate":
<?php if (isset($_POST['cancel'])) {
$this->redirect(array('home'));
} elseif (isset($_POST['step2'])) {
$this->setPageState('step1',$_POST['Model']); // save step1 into form state
$model=new Model('step1');
$model->attributes = $_POST['Model'];
if($model->validate())
$this->render('form2',array('model'=>$model));
else {
$this->render('form1',array('model'=>$model));
}
} elseif (isset($_POST['finish'])) {
$model=new Model('finish');
$model->attributes = $this->getPageState('step1',array()); //get the info from step 1
$model->attributes = $_POST['Model']; // then the info from step2
if ($model->save())
$this->redirect(array('home'));
else {
$this->render('form2',array('model'=>$model));
} else { // this is the default, first time (step1)
$model=new Model('new');
$this->render('form1',array('model'=>$model));
} ?>
The forms would look something like this:
Form1:
<?php $form=$this->beginWidget('CActiveForm', array(
'enableAjaxValidation'=>false,
'id'=>'model-form',
'stateful'=>true,
));
<!-- form1 fields go here -->
echo CHtml::submitButton("Cancel",array('name'=>'cancel');
echo CHtml::submitButton("On to Step 2 >",array('name'=>'step2');
$this->endWidget(); ?>
Form 2:
<?php $form=$this->beginWidget('CActiveForm', array(
'enableAjaxValidation'=>false,
'id'=>'model-form',
'stateful'=>true,
));
<!-- form2 fields go here -->
echo CHtml::submitButton("Back to Step 1",array('name'=>'step1');
echo CHtml::submitButton("Finish",array('name'=>'finish');
$this->endWidget(); ?>
I hope that is helpful!