IBM Cognos Analytics

Score6.9 out of 10

584 Reviews and Ratings

What is IBM Cognos Analytics?

IBM 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.

Categories & Use Cases

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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.

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Screenshot of a natural language query, used in IBM Cognos Analytics to get AI-powered insights from data.

Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
Category average: 7.9
Report Versioning
Report versioning is the assignment of version numbers to each version of a report to help in tracking.
Category average: 8.5
Javascript API
A Javascript API is a type of API
Category average: 8.2

Pattern Recognition and Data Mining
Pattern recognition and data mining mean the ability to recognize hidden patterns in large quantities of data.
Category average: 7.6
Predictive Analytics
Predictive Analytics is the ability to build forecasting models based on existing data sets.
Category average: 7.8
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
Multiple access permission levels means that different levels of users have different rights.
Category average: 8.3

Most Frequent Users

Top 3 industries using IBM Cognos Analytics.

Based on HG Insights installation data

View all Reviews

#1 most frequent

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

16.4%

2,074 installations of 12,664

#2 most frequent

Manufacturing

13.5%

1,704 installations of 12,664

#3 most frequent

Finance and Insurance

10.6%

1,348 installations of 12,664

Pros

Robust reporting and data visualization capabilities
Advanced AI and predictive analytics features
Comprehensive data integration from diverse sources

Cons

Steep learning curve for new users
Performance lag in the cloud version with larger datasets
Limited and less user-friendly mobile functionality

Muneeb Khan

Business Intelligence Developer in Information Technology at American Iron & Metal (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

IBM Cognos Analytics is used as a reporting tool to make reports and schedule them. We have over 250 reports that are scheduled daily and weekly to over 20 executives. IBM Cognos Analytics was initially decided to be used as an automatic scheduler of excel format reports. Later on it was adopted to be used as our dashboarding platform.

Pros

Schedule reports
Calculations and transformation of raw data
Flexibility with excel format

Cons

Write back functionality
Visual Data Modelling
Native connectivity with latest cloud platforms

Return on Investment

Time Savings & Productivity Gains
Consistent, governed data models reduce the risk of errors
Report bursting ensures store managers, regional leaders, and executives each receive tailored reports automatically
On-prem IBM Cognos Analytics environments require heavy IT effort to maintain servers

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Power BI, Tableau Cloud and Sigma Computing

Other Software Used

Snowflake, Microsoft Power BI, Sigma Computing, ThoughtSpot

Shivanand Labbi

Senior software engineer in Information Technology at Manhattan (501-1000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We work for supply chain domain industry and IBM Cognos Analytics is integrated with our organization product warehouse management the primary usage of this tool is for generating the reports based on the warehouse data stored in database also helps in analysing data for various purpose in warehouse management , It provides easy reporting and powerful analysis also with smooth integration across multiple data sources also it has very user-friendly interface.

Pros

Reports Generation and auto scheduling part
Data analysis is good feature
It has various font support helps in Ware house for ex it supports barcodes and all
Load balancing feature and auto healing

Cons

Application breaks for no reason many times and fix is only restart.
Customer service is poor is what I felt
Interface looks outdated that needs and impovement
LDAP logins gives error multiple times for example integration with Azure login makes trouble

Return on Investment

Strong data analysis capabilities helps for business planning
Great reporting capacity helps to update all the leadership management about the business in one report
Auto scheduling and report generation is good feature which saves lot of time.

Alternatives Considered

Informatica PowerCenter (legacy)

Other Software Used

PagerDuty, Salesforce CMS, Docker, IBM webMethods, Nagios XI

Ranjit R Puthenpuramodyil View profile

Principal at Toshiba (10,001+ employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use IBM Cognos Analytics as part of various leadership reports and insights. The business problem we address is how effective our inventory is flowing and what inventory is in more demand and which location.

Pros

Data Cleansing
Visual Graphs
Predictive Analytics

Cons

Performance
GenAI based SQL instructions

Return on Investment

Time Savings
KPI reporting

Alternatives Considered

Tableau Desktop and Powerbird

Other Software Used

IBM Sterling Order Management, IBM Maximo Application Suite, IBM Watson Content Analytics

Bernd Oerthle View profile

Head of analytic infrastructure in Engineering at ALH Gruppe (1001-5000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Running entire reporting for 3k users

Pros

Reporting
Crosstabs
Data modules

Cons

Dashboards
interoperability with planning

Return on Investment

Almost every report runs on Cognos

Alternatives Considered

IBM Planning Analytics

Dion Paul View profile

Business Intelligence Administrator in Information Technology at AscendSC (201-500 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Inventory, financial, and historical reporting and dashboarding.

Pros

Scheduling
Modeling
Interoperability

Cons

2FA with other authenticators
Interconnection with other applications like PA on Cloud Hosted

Return on Investment

Significant time savings in report distribution
Ease of administration
Savings by keeping things secured

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Power BI

Other Software Used

IBM Planning Analytics

IBM Cognos Analytics

What is IBM Cognos Analytics?

Categories & Use Cases

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