ADF Task Flows - Managing Transactions

You probably already know that ADF Task Flows are much more than simple page flow navigation. I was blogging previously on this topic, you can check - JDeveloper 11g and ADF Task Flow Parameters and ADF Task Flow in JDeveloper 11g. In this post I will describe how it's possible to manage transactions with ADF Task Flows.

Developed sample application - ADFTaskFlowTransactions.zip implements one transaction for Departments and Employees entities, this sample is based on HR schema from Oracle XE database.

How to understood transactions in ADF Task Flows? Basically speaking, ADF Task Flows allow to manage transactions declaratively in View layer. This means we can think about transactions in terms of forms available to the user. For example, if transportation information is entered into system through two screens - Source and Destination, transaction will be successful if both Source and Destination will be valid.

Sample application contains one main page and bounded task flow that implements transaction:


Transaction is opened from main page and is closed when control is returned back to main page.

If you will take closer look into bounded task flow that implements transaction, you will see here two pages and return activity defined. In updateDepartment page Department data is modified and in updateEmployees page Employees data is modified. Modified data is saved during return from bounded task flow:


Basic transaction for bounded ADF Task Flow is configured in two steps:

1. For bounded task flow, in Property Inspector tab, define transaction type in Behavior section. For my sample application I have defined new-transaction type.


2. Define behavior for task flow return activity. I have specified for Task Flow Return activity in Property Inspector tab, Behavior section, commit type for End Transaction property.


Both pages - updateDepartment and updateEmployees don't have Commit action defined in Page Definition files. This means that commit action isn't executed from those pages, it is executed only once when transaction is finished.

No Commit action defined in updateDepartmentPageDef.xml:


And there is no Commit action defined in updateEmployeesPageDef.xml as well:


How implemented transaction works? Transaction is opened from main page, where one of available locations is selected. During transaction, information about departments and employees from selected location will be updated:


Transaction is opened with first screen, where we can browse through and update information related to departments, from here we can open second step in transaction - information about employees update from selected department:


Second form is used to update information related to employees from selected department, here transaction is closed: