Unfortunately this did not solve the problem. Per Oracle support what you are suggesting is applicable to OTBI export from a dashboard and is not related to BIP reports.

Tushar, This is of great help and exactly the kind of fix that should help. We using Oracle Fusion Cloud, so I am not sure if this will work but I will create SR and request if support can help us implement this.

Sherry, Appreciate your help. I will post this to BI Publisher forum. The template type is xpt. Bec of confidential data cannot share sample xml.