Change Password Option Disabled for non admin users in OBIEE 11g

With 11g, OBIEE essentially uses the 10g notion of external authentication.

By default, this is done by the WLS (Weblogic) LDAP identity store, but it may be done by another supported Authenticator either within WLS, or in the OBIS meta data (i.e. Custom Authenticator or LDAP). As such, OBIEE no longer has any control over user passwords; this is why the steps referenced in note 1102353.1 do not apply to OBIEE 11g, but only to internal/repository-defined users in OBIEE 10g.

So, as with password maintenance in OBIEE 10g when an external authenticator is used, it is within that external authentication system that password is changed, not within OBIEE 11g.  There is no option in OBIEE 11g to allow users to change passwords.


There are two work-arounds with which you can change your password:
1) From the Weblogic administration console/WLST.
You need to give such user access into Weblogic console or access to browse through involved MBean hierarchy and other modify permissions. Changing the password using WLST instance is covered here:

Ideally, the console and WLST approaches are used by Administration accounts to manage other users. But the console and WLST can be made to allow other users to change passwords (which will be more or less like carrying out an administrative task by users themselves)

2) Using a programmatic approach.
Here the application that intends to provide password change functionality to its users should implement this functionality on its own (GUI plus call to the relevant Weblogic API). Weblogic provides an MBean that the application can use to accomplish this. See here for more information.

An enhancement request exists for this functionality.  This is unpublished bug 11836170 - enable non admin users to change passwords in obiee 11g.

Until Next Post ... :)