Unable to change column data format to HTML

Marcus M. Thompson

I'm running OBIEE 12.2.1.3 on Windows Server 2016. I am having trouble changing the "Treat text as" field on the Column Properties dialog. I am not seeing any options other than Plain text and Plain text (don't break spaces).

In my instanceconfig.xml, my security block looks like this:

<Security>

<CheckUrlFreshness>false</CheckUrlFreshness>

<EnableSavingContentWithHTML>true</EnableSavingContentWithHTML>

</Security>

In Manage Privileges, these two options are allowed for the BI Author role:

 - Save content with HTML markup

 - Save actions containing embedded HTML

Under My Account .. Applications Roles, the user is a member of the BI Author role. 

As a test to see if I'm changing the correct file, I set <ResultRowLimit>123456</ResultRowLimit> in instanceconfig.xml and restarted all services. The "FETCH FIRST" now accurately reflects 123,457 rows, so I know that I've changed the correct instanceconfig.xml file. 

As a last futile effort, I rebooted the entire machine. No luck.

Finally, I installed a fresh copy of OBIEE 12.2.1.4 on a fresh machine that has never seen OBIEE before. That 12.2.1.4 environment is exhibiting exactly the same behavior as 12.2.1.3 on the original machine.

Any thoughts of something I have not tried?

Marcus M. Thompson

Well, I think I figured it out, but it makes no sense to me. It seems that in order to see and use the Treat Text As options for a column's data type, I must grant the Save System-Wide Column Formats privilege to that user, or to one of that user's roles, such as the BI Author role. 

Can someone please explain the logic behind that design decision? I absolutely do NOT want my Authors to mess with System-Wide column formats, nor would I imagine that any other OBIEE administrators would want every one of their authors to have that privilege. 

How in the world does this make any sense at all? I just want to format one column on one analysis. Why should formatting a single column on a single analysis require a privilege that should be highly restricted, available to only a very small handful of people?  The integrity of the system should not be subject to the whims of someone who can click a button and say "gee, let's see what this does".

I suppose the workaround is for an author to (1) create the analysis; (2) save the analysis in a shared folder; and then (3) ask a user with BI Administrator privileges to edit the analysis and change the column's data format to Treat Text As HTML. Woof.