We use IBM Cognos Analytics to highlight opportunities for growth and scale our reporting across the enterprise.
Pros
Bursting
Schedules
Governance
Security
Cons
Self-service
Understanding the difference between bi tool options (watsonx data governance etc)
Likelihood to Recommend
I think IBM Cognos Analytics is well suited for enterprise reporting and business intelligence. It allows both in memory and back end data depending on needs and requirements. IBM Cognos Analytics struggles with advocacy reporting and dashboarding compared to competitors, or that’s the vibes. Would appreciate additional training on how to best leverage AI inside the tool and connect externally.
In our organization we use IBM Cognos Analytics for developing and creating the automated dashboard and reports. These are used eliminate the manual reporting and simplify the data analytics. It assisted us to track and perfomance and support on decision making.
Pros
Simplifed Dashboard
Automated reports
Role based access
Compatibility with other tools
Cons
IBM Cognos Analytics should improve the customizations
Some time dashboards are slow
Reports generations takes much time when we provide large data
Likelihood to Recommend
It suited for us when performing compliance and Audit reporting. Additionally, our finance team utilizing for detailed financial summary and budget planning.
VU
Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology (Computer Networking company, 10,001+ employees)
I use IBM Cognos Analytics mainly for reporting and data visualization, and it makes it easier for me to produce thorough reports and mix several data sources. Predictive analytics and the AI chatbot help one to acquire insights without writing code.
Pros
AI chatbot simplifies data searching.
Creating thorough reports requires seamless integration and also with several data sources.
Push alerts always remind me of deadlines and achievements.
Cons
Sometimes, the cloud version is a little slow, particularly in relation to bigger datasets.
The learning curve is steep and configuring data connections can be trouble.
The default templates often seem constrained, and I wish there were more choices for visualizations.
Likelihood to Recommend
This platform manages data analysis, dashboards, and reporting all at once, and teams who wish to cooperate without running the danger of data loss would greatly benefit from it, and it has more use and greater freedom in report design.
Being in the video production industry, we have a lot of bulky data relating to audience engagement of a video on a particular digital platform. IBM Cognos Analytics provides us AI driven data analytics which helps us identify which category of audience has engaged the most, and also helps us bucket the audiences into age groups, demographics, etc. It helps us extract useful information out of the bulky data that is scraped.
Pros
Great dashboard
Understands prompts reasonably well
Amazing charts
Decent speed
Cons
Procedure to add data import file can be confusing at times
UI feels outdated
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Cognos Analytics is pretty well suited to work on bulky data set, from which a specific set of information needs to be extracted. Works really well for us for assessing and analysing audience engagement on various social platforms like Instagram, YouTube, X, etc. and helps us guide our clients on efficient marketing strategy.
VU
Verified User
Analyst in Finance and Accounting (Media Production company, 201-500 employees)
We used IBM Cognos Analytics as our reporting solution for our application through API.
Pros
Ongoing release and upgrades
Customer support
scalable solutions
Cons
Easily reach out of support from helpdesk
Too expensive
Too much additional paid services like performance tuning, API, etc...
Likelihood to Recommend
Will recommend for their dashboard and active reports. for 3rd party application call through API, will not recommend since it all required paid services for support.
IBM Cognos Analytics has helped me to visualize and present Data in a very insightful manner to my clients. It helps in making charts, graphs and predictions of data which is very useful for us when talking to a vendor. It helps in analysing the needs and demands of different clients through different data points and making plans accordingly.
Pros
Integration of different file formats
Easy to use interface
Easily sync able to cloud so you can access the files with your IBM account anywhere.
Cons
The interface is easy but it is somewhat inferior when compared to other analytics softwares
The price is expensive in comparison to peers
Requires fast internet to operate smoothly. No desktop version
Likelihood to Recommend
It is well suited for companies which extensively work with complex data and have a big client base as the features it provides can be fully utilized there only. Smaller companies which work on small datasets may find it expensive and would not be able to use it fully to fulfil their demands.
Earlier in my previous company we were using RPG AS400 for developing the business reports then we migrated our all projects to Cognos, developing all new reports and migrating old one using Cognos. prior to that I don’t have any knowledge about Cognos so got in-house training. I don’t found it very difficult to learn and adapt. Actually its very easy to learn and we can get everything we want under one roof.
Pros
Reporting
Scheduling
Framework manager
Cons
Visually less appealing as compared to tableau
Likelihood to Recommend
Can get almost everything under one umbrella. With the help of frame work manager we can create database warehouse , schemas and many more. Can create separate queries for each view. we can do the report scheduling which is not available in other BI Tools and less expensive as compared to Tableau
This platform offers a full range of BI software to address business goals. It helps to create easy-to-use and run detailed reports for data analysis, provides the ability to edit current data along with alerts, schedules, etc. in real-time. Also, there is flexibility in data import and reporting in this tool, it can manage large data sets, it also offers an option to export reports in XML or PDF format.IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson also gives us the ability to use interactive dashboards, create business reports, explore data, etc. very easily.
Pros
It is a reliable and scalable platform.
It offers data connectors including SQL Server, CSV, Excel, and more.
Multiple integrations.
Flexible deployment options.
Cons
Does not provide a free trial.
It is difficult to learn.
It is not easy to use and implement for non-technical users.
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM is a reporting tool that focuses on data analysis. It is the most robust digital BI platform that I have used for years, with IBM I can get detailed information through a variety of reports/dashboards. I can send my colleagues by email reports in PDF or XML format, it also allows easy integration with third-party tools for more fluid communication.
IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson helps us understand our data. It is adaptable to different data processing scenarios and environments support various tools for back-end tasks such as data warehousing, data integration, data management, query language, ETL process, etc. Easily integrates with MS Excel and spreadsheets. Its amazing reporting feature helps to create very attractive custom dashboards. It allows powerful visualizations from our computer in a few seconds.
Pros
Integrated ETL tools.
Data export in multiple formats (PDF, Excel and CSV)
Fast and accurate data recovery.
Less expensive.
Scalability and flexibility to work.
Cons
Does not support multidimensional analysis.
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson offers the best performance with its features. It is a stable tool, it facilitates the storage and processing of data in companies. It is compatible with the popular RDBMS to handle data related to reporting and content management. It allows you to connect to any type of data source and also allows you to retrieve data from data sources.
We implement IBM Cognos Analytics to other companies. We mostly implement it in the financial department because of the users' needs: daily report generation and distribution and easy access to accounts information. One of the major problems that we solved using IBM Cognos Analytics was the automatic generation of the profit and loss report depending on the selected subsidiary.
In the latest version (11.1.5), the colors of the data source model are the same for all the elements (hierarchies, dimensions, etc.)
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Cognos Analytics is very useful in companies that have data silos, when every department has its own data source. IBM Cognos Analytics unifies all the information coming from different sources and provides trusted information to the users.
I would not recommend it to small companies because the costs of implementation and annual licenses can be hard to bear.
