13.3. Transactions

JBoss BPM Suite engine supports Java Transaction API (JTA). The engine executes any method you invoke in a separate transaction unless you set transaction boundaries. Transaction boundaries allow you to combine multiple commands into one transaction.
Register a transaction manager before using user-defined transactions. The following sample code uses Bitronix transaction manager. It also uses JTA to specify transaction boundaries: 
// create the entity manager factory and register it in the environment
EntityManagerFactory emf = Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory( "org.jbpm.persistence.jpa" );
Environment env = KnowledgeBaseFactory.newEnvironment();
env.set( EnvironmentName.ENTITY_MANAGER_FACTORY, emf );
env.set( EnvironmentName.TRANSACTION_MANAGER, TransactionManagerServices.getTransactionManager() );

// create a new knowledge session that uses JPA to store the runtime state

StatefulKnowledgeSession ksession = JPAKnowledgeService.newStatefulKnowledgeSession( kbase, null, env );

// start the transaction

UserTransaction ut = (UserTransaction) new InitialContext().lookup( "java:comp/UserTransaction" );
ut.begin();

// perform multiple commands inside one transaction

ksession.insert( new Person( "John Doe" ) );
ksession.startProcess( "MyProcess" );

// commit the transaction

ut.commit();
If you use Bitronix as the transaction manager, you must provide jndi.properties in your root classpath to register the Bitronix transaction manager in JNDI.
  • If you use the jbpm-test module, jndi.properties is included by default.
  • If you are not using jbpm-test module, create jndi.properties manually with the following content: 
    java.naming.factory.initial=bitronix.tm.jndi.BitronixInitialContextFactory
If you use a different JTA transaction manager, modify the transaction manager property in persistence.xml: 
<property name="hibernate.transaction.jta.platform" value="org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup" />