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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Cognos Analytics

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AIBM Cognos is a full-featured business intelligence suite by IBM, designed for larger deployments. It comprises Query Studio, Reporting Studio, Analysis Studio and Event Studio, and Cognos Administration along with tools for Microsoft Office integration, full-text search, and dashboards.

    $10

    per month per user

    Pricing
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    Editions & Modules
    On Demand - Standard
    USD 10.00
    per month per user
    On Demand - Premium
    USD 42.40
    per month per user
    On Demand - Standard
    USD 10.60
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    Free Trial
    Yes
    Free/Freemium Version
    No
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    Yes
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptional
    Additional Details—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    Tableau, Power BI, QlikView were the other options considered. Tableau lacked the following key components of business intelligence and analytics. Some other statistical functions that are available on the platform were not matched by Power BI. QlikView lacked robust …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    We selected IBM Cognos Analytics based on the following. The scalable and robust features for large organizations allowing it to grow as we do. The nest feature is the strong data governance and security features. It also supports a wide variety of data sources. Lastly, it …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    It was due to trust in IBM. Very good support provide by IBM. Response time is pretty good
    Product is proven in past & well robust feature
    Many good enterprises have used this product
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    It is a tool that delivers good performance at a good price.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    My company selected IBM Congos Analytics because of its advanced features and data representation for data analysis. Its row and column features are very effective for creating dashboards and reports to visualize data. It's chart representation and view format are very …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    Not to be compared. Completely different products.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    It does well however, we need more user friendly interfaces, integration options and visualizations.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    IBM Cognos Analytics is our legacy BI solution. It hadn't stacked up well against its modern contemporaries. We are thinking of replacing it with Microsoft BI.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    Cognos provides very advanced analytics functionalities, maybe even more advanced than the competition, and works great when used in collaboration with Watson. However, Tableau and other newer products are much better regarding overall usability.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    We looked at Qlik Sense, SAP Analytics Cloud, and IBM Cognos Analytics for our financial brand's needs. Qlik Sense is super user-friendly, great for quick data digging. SAP Analytics is perfect when we're working with other SAP stuff; it just clicks. But for our big project, …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    IBM Cognos comes close to Data Central. It has some pros & cons over Data Central. Pros: 1. We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very much in line with real-life scenarios. 2. Has a mobile application that works …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    IBM Cognos has a lot more deep, robust, AI-driven Business Intelligence features that remove some of the manual work. Automation is a lot more seamless and ease of making data available and digestible by several non-technical business partners.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    Cognos Analytics provides wide range for reporting, data visualization, and self service analytics. Cognos has strong security and governance features. Sigma Computing is purely cloud native approach and has spreadsheet like interface and doesn't provide many customization …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    I feel like IBM Cognos Analytics offers a more in depth look into the business’ analytics and data and has more functionalities with AI.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    While all of them have their own advantages. IBM Cognos Analytics is highly scalable and have unmatched data analytics capabilities which makes the data from IBM Cognos Analytics of very high quality and data governance also makes sure your data is safe and protected.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    IBM Cognos Analytics is a relatively late entrant in the BI space - dominated by Tableau and Qlik. it works well for 80% of our use cases and is easy for a non technical user to start using. Also due to enterprise licensing, its easier to distribute internally.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    In the past Management had used Excel and Workiva capabilities to create the reporting dashboards that were being used to make decisions. Since switching to IBM Cognos Analytics the Company has been much more efficient and decision making has been streamlined. IBM Cognos …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    I like the cloud native character and ease of deployment with Sigma and ThogthSpot, I also like the metadata modelling capabilities of Power BI. I prefer the ability of Cognos to create and publish a metadata model that provides both ad hoc access and managed reporting and …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    They are better in Dashboarding and performance analysis.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    Microsoft Power BI has a more user friendly interface and it is integrated very well with the other Microsoft products but IBM Cognos Analytics has a more advanced reporting and complex data analysis capabilities.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    We have alot of resources already invested in Cognos and it would be a humongous effort to migrate. CA is more inline with Power BI and Tableau now that there are dashboarding capabilities.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    We could deliver a corporate wide solution with Cognos, it is an end-to-end platform. No other option provided the same breadth of scope. I can't think of a feature that the others provide that Cognos lacks, but the others do not provide the same features and governance of …
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    None, we only use Report Studio from API
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    No need to physically share data with developers, users. All we need is to send the server URL.
    Incentivized
    Chose IBM Cognos Analytics
    IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson is an enterprise ready tool and could provide end to end functionality expected from a BI tool. Provides integration with custom applications as well as provides not just high end visualizations that Tableau or PowerBI provides but also the very …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    65 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    56 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    65 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    42 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    44 Answers
    Features
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.0
    106 Ratings
    15% below category average
    Pixel Perfect reports6.896 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards7.3104 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates7.0101 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.4
    108 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Drill-down analysis7.3106 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities7.1107 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages7.874 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration7.4103 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.8
    107 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Publish to Web8.327 Ratings
    Publish to PDF7.0101 Ratings
    Report Versioning8.626 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling7.0104 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers8.112 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    6.7
    98 Ratings
    17% below category average
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)6.993 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.189 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics6.486 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining6.624 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.4
    103 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Multi-User Support (named login)8.0100 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model7.899 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)6.199 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control7.328 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)7.782 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.6
    84 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Responsive Design for Web Access7.678 Ratings
    Mobile Application7.968 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile9.074 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of IBM Cognos Analytics
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.7
    65 Ratings
    1% below category average
    REST API7.562 Ratings
    Javascript API8.660 Ratings
    iFrames8.39 Ratings
    Java API6.911 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)7.110 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.87 Ratings
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    IBM Cognos Analytics
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    Cyfe
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    Score9.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.3
    (131 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.4
    (27 ratings)
    Usability
    8.1
    (8 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (8 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.7
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    Configurability
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.6
    (40 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.3
    (40 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.0
    (4 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.2
    (3 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    IBM Cognos Analytics has great scheduling capabilities. A single report can be parameterized (e.g., “Store Manager ID”) and burst to thousands of recipients with their slice of data.IBM Cognos Analytics is a good fit for highly complex, multi-level calculations which can be handled by Report Studio. For example Monthly balance sheet that requires multi step calculation
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    IBM
    • We can make dozens of dispatchers all focusing on different types of workloads.
    • Friendly user interface, without the need for coding or complicated editing.
    • Highly functionality reporting tools.
    • We can easily create trigger when a certain threshold are met sending reports or alerts to needed parties.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    IBM
    • IBM Cognos Analytics enables customer data segmentation, which is essential for marketing, improving and streamlining purchasing behavior and preferences. This helps companies create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.
    • Our clients Through data analysis, we can identify and observe trends in the behavior of other clients, allowing us to anticipate needs and adjust strategies to avoid consequences.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    For an existing solution, renewing licenses does provide a good return on investment. Additionally, while rolling out scorecards and dashboards with little adhoc capabilities, to end users, cognos is very easily scalable. It also allows to create a solution that has a mix of OLAP and relational data-sources, which is a limitation with other tools. Synchronizing with existing security setup is easy too.
    Read full review
    Usability
    IBM
    We have a strong user base (3500 users) that are highly utilizing this tool. Basic users are able to consume content within the applied security model. We have a set of advanced users that really push the limits of Cognos with Report and Query Studio. These users have created a lot of personal content and stored it in 'My Reports'. Users enjoy this flexibility.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    Reports can typically be viewed through any browser that can access the server, so the availability is ultimately up to what the company utilizing it is comfortable with allowing, though report development tends to be more picky about browsers and settings as mentioned above. It also has an optional iPad app and general mobile browsing support, but dashboards lack the mobile compatibility. What keeps it from getting a higher score is the desktop tools that are vital to the development process. The compatibility with only Windows when the server has a wide range of compatibility can be a real sore point for a company that outfits its employees exclusively with Mac or Linux machines. Of course, if they are planning on outsourcing the development anyways, it's a rather moot point
    Read full review
    Performance
    IBM
    Overall no major complaints but it doesn't handle DMR (Dimensionally Modeled for Relational) very well. DMR modelling is a capability that IBM Cognos Framework Manager provides allowing you to specify dimensional information for relational metadata and allows for OLAP-style queries. However, the capability is not very efficient and, for example, if I'm using only 2 columns on a 20-column model, the software is not smart enough to exclude 18 columns and the query side gets progressively larger and larger until it's effectively unusable.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    IBM
    Why is their web application not working as fast as you think it should? They never know, and it is always a a bunch of shots in the dark to find out. Trying to download software from them is like trying to find a book at the library before computers were invented.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    IBM
    Onsite training provided by IBM Cognos was effective and as expected. They did not perform training with our data which was a bit difficult for our end-users.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    IBM
    The online courses they offer are thorough and presented in such a way that someone who isn't already familiar with the general design methodologies used in this field will be capable of making a good design. The training environments are provided as a fully self contained virtual machine with everything needed already to create the environments. We've had some persisting issues with the environments becoming unavailable, but support has been responsive when these issues arise and straightening them out for us
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    IBM
    Make sure that any custom tables that you have, are built into your metadata packages. You can still access them via SQL queries in Cognos, but it is much easier to have them as a part of the available metadata packages.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    My company selected IBM Congos Analytics because of its advanced features and data representation for data analysis. Its row and column features are very effective for creating dashboards and reports to visualize data. It's chart representation and view format are very attractive and useful for representation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    IBM
    The Cognos architecture is well suited for scalability. However, the architecture must be designed with scalability in mind from day one of the implementation. We recently upgraded from 10.1 to 10.2.1 and took the opportunity to revamp our architecture. It is now poised for future growth and scalability.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very similar to real-life scenarios.
    • Options of customizing & scheduling reports as per our requirements basis.
    • Has mobile application which works seamless.
    • API integration is not upto the mark with very limited options.
    • Licensing & Maintenance can go from cheap to expensive depending on the scope.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

    Screenshot of a natural language query, used in IBM Cognos Analytics to get AI-powered insights from data.Screenshot of AI-generated insights and forecasts that can be added with just a click of a button.Screenshot of a dashboard that can be generated automatically using IBM Cognos Analytics by uploading or selecting data.Screenshot of an AI-generated dashboard from a spreadsheet that was just uploaded. This offers a great starting point for the creative process.Screenshot of where to import data to IBM Cognos Analytics from CSV files and spreadsheets. Users can connect to cloud or on-premises data sources, including SQL databases, Google BigQuery, Amazon, and Redshift.Screenshot of a sample operational dashboard of a coffee shop created using IBM Cognos Analytics.