I work in an industry which is completely data driven, using IBM Cognos Analytics we can easily schedule reports that could be sent out to stake holders without any manual interference. The data driven analytics is very helpfull in generating graph reports and also generate predictions
Pros
Scheduled report generational and email
Very good for customising reports and creating accurate reports
It can easily integrate with multiple ERP's
Cons
Pricing is a bit higher
You cannot share report to users who do not have a license
Very difficult to implement it for the first time without admin support
Likelihood to Recommend
The IBM Cognos Analytics is well suited in places where is there is a lot of data to be processed, using this tool all the data can be split it to multiple reports. Our BA team was complaining about raw data being given to them and the time it was taking time to extract this data however with IBM Cognos Analytics tool this was done within no time , which actually helped the team to work on the data
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology (Biotechnology company, 10,001+ employees)
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. It offers options for customizing and scheduling reports as per our requirements. It has a mobile application that works seamlessly. Depending on the scope, licensing, and maintenance can go from cheap to expensive.
Pros
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.
Cons
API integration is not upto the mark with very limited options.
Laptops get overheated when the tool is used from moderate to heavy use. Also, there is a lag in the tool times.
Licensing & Maintenance can go from cheap to expensive depending on the scope.
Lot of scope to improve the customer support & its not upto the industry standards.
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited: 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. Options
of customizing & scheduling reports as per our
requirements basis. 3. Has a mobile application that works seamlessly. Less Appropriate: 1. API integration with minimal options is not up to the mark. Laptops get overheated when using the tool, from moderate to heavy use. 2. Also, there is a lag in the tool times. 3. There is a lot of scope to improve customer support & it's not up to industry standards. 4. Licensing
& Maintenance can go from cheap to expensive depending on the scope.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Sales (Apparel & Fashion company, 10,001+ employees)
It is a software with a good and simple user interface, it has artificial intelligence that provides a good and precise predictive analysis, since the implementation we improved our productivity, the creation of reports is adequate, we achieved better data analysis, which allowed us to make the best decisions based on the data obtained through this platform, achieving better results that could not be obtained before.
Pros
Predictive data analysis is intuitive and with real-time results.
Easy obtaining and customization of reports.
Better decision making, is a software capable of simplifying our work and improving our productivity, since errors are minimized.
Cons
It's not a very flashy looking piece of software, but it ticks the boxes for functionality, and for first-time users, just a quick workout is easy to pick up.
Expert help should be sought for configuration.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is the most appropriate software to make the best decision, since the data analysis is precise, I recommend it with great confidence, it is perfect, since with the artificial intelligence it has we were able to increase productivity in data collection, it has powerful functionalities to improve our processes without having complications. We adapted IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson because we did some research and received good recommendations, and although we were skeptical at first, this software assured us of overall company-wide performance.
When I was using IBM Cognos, it was the primary reporting solution for the enterprise, both at HIll-Rom and at Ethicon Endo-Surgery. It was the official tool for users to consume information from the enterprise data warehouse. I've also used it as a third-party integrator.
Pros
The strength of Cognos has always been their data modeling layer. Both in Framework Manager and in Transformer, very sophisticated data models could be applied to any database-housed source data.
Very easy to implement security on data access.
The ability to control what queries/operations were handled by Cognos, versus those that would be passed off to the database.
Having both the Framework models and the report studio specs be xml documents made third-party integration quite nice.
Printing reports is very easy.
Drilling up/down/through very easy to do.
Cons
The data models aren't available to anything besides Cognos Reports. So if a custom application or an analysis tool from another vendor wants to access the data, they can't take advantage of any of the modeling work done in Framework Manager, they have to do it all over again. This is a travesty. The modeling should be presented as a federated database layer that any application can take advantage of.
The data modeling environment doesn't lend itself to good development practices: You can't tell easily what the impact will be to making a change (Will this break report? cubes?), there's no built-in version control, only one person can work on a model at a single time, large files become unwieldy.
The general level of graphics is behind other vendors. The maps in particular are terrible.
The tool is expensive, and locks you in.
Working with a performant, dimensional source like a cube requires learning and using archaic mdx, and is very difficult to do in Report Studio.
Likelihood to Recommend
When money is no object, vendor lock-in isn't a problem, and users don't care how good the reports look -- IBM Cognos is a good fit for that.
We have over 39 systems for which data packages have been developed so that reports and graphics can be developed and used in COGNOS 10. COGNOS is used in most of the company and will eventually be used in all of the company.
It has enabled us to merge data from several systems and develop reports that can give the whole picture for a given program. It is used to access data from systems such as procurement, employee tracking, manufacturing and travel accounting, just to name a few.
It is solving the problem of having to access multiple systems. It has given us the ability to standardize our reporting structure and will eventually enable us to report up to management and the executive level using the same formats and thus reducing man hours spent on specialized reporting, pivot tables, and creating graphics manually.
Pros
COGNOS is very good at not only extracting data but it is very versatile in joining data sets. This is very useful when trying to use several different data streams to accomplish a single report out.
It is also creating complex formulas/data manipulation. Often the raw data received needs to be put into perspective with other data points. Creating complex case statements, for example, can yield some very interesting results with out further manual manipulation. You can also format it to color code final data outputs based on prescribed standards.
If you need data relating to data points that are simply not part of the data source, you can create statements that act as reference tables, e.g. if this data point equals that then this is the result. You can also create direct SQL statements.
There is so much more. I haven't even scratched the surface. I learn about more powerful options and methods every time I use it.
Cons
One big area that needs improvement is the validation option. It is very confusing and not specific enough to actually find a problem. The reports we create can be very complex. If just one item is not validated it often fires off a list that invalidates every field. Even just one item showing up during validation can be hard to find the source. When validating on a field to field basis, it gives you the number of the position of about where the problem is. Some of our case statements, for example can be hundreds of characters and you have to count to find the basic place. It would be nice if it was highlighted instead and offered suggestions.
The Tips box for available components, e.g. operators, dimensional functions, etc. on each data item needs to be more specific with actual examples. Some have actual data examples but most don't.
The user guide is not user friendly at all. It needs to have a search and be formatted more like the MS Office help modules with very detailed examples.
Likelihood to Recommend
Honestly I think IBM COGNOS is well suited for any application requiring reporting that uses more up to date languages. There are still companies out there using DOS. I would not think COGNOS would be compatible with that. All in all it is an excellent program. I am big on consolidating data into one source and standardizing reporting. I started long ago with Report Writer. My first use resulted in taking a quarterly report out to the EPA that took 3 weeks and gathered data for multiple sources that took less than 2 hours.
The only challenge I have had is gaining an expert working knowledge of all the methods that can be used to accomplish writing the most complex report. I really needed someone with that kind of knowledge to work with me. But each time I started working with someone like that, they moved on. At this point they will be changing my position out of development work and big layoffs are coming. So I will not be able to continue to develop the skill level I want.
IBM Cognos BI suite has been deployed across enterprise and end customers, for one of the customers at my previous company. They are at version 10.2.2 which consists of dashboards and daily data snapshots. The target users are mostly mid-level and top-management but external users such as dealers and vendors have access to the environment when it comes to scorecards. It is easily integrated with other websites. It has a good API that allows seamless integration. However, the main challenge includes extensive learning, frequent service restarts and proper documentation of troubleshooting information. Additionally, visualization and query engine still require improvements in terms of creating simpler queries. It consists of Analysis Studio, Query Studio, Workspace, Workspace Advanced as Adhoc Analysis tools, which provides alternate for OLAP and relational database, but it poses a challenge while educating users to uses the right tool for analysis. Report Studio is widely used for preparing canned reports, but if the components are not structured properly within a report then it can lead to unstable environment. Dynamic Cubes is one of the client tools which allows analysis on large set of data but has a lot of dependency on materialized views created in database. As per IBM's roadmap, dynamic cube would be the future but IBM needs to improve or enhance the tool in terms of supporting aggregate awareness and less dependency on database materialized views.
Pros
IBM cognos can create reports against transactional as well as data marts. It has the capability of combining results of multiple databases too.
Integrating with external websites is easy and seamless. It provides SDK for Java and C# which extends the report functionality.
Administrators have easy access to stop/start a particular service through administrator page. It also simplifies the code migration. Modelling tools like framework manager and transformer are quite intutive.
Zero footprint architecture allows an end user to author and publish reports through an internet browser.
Bursting option eliminates the requirement of storing multiple copies of report which each user or user group.
Cons
Visualization and charting engines are still elementary. IBM Cognos has introduced RAVE charts but the capabilities are limited and customization is still tricky.
Cognos Insight is one of the self-learning BI tools, but it is not at par with the Tableau or Qlik. It needs a lot of improvements.
Aggregate awareness has to be extended further to other tools like framework manager or transformer. Similarly, active reports have to be more robust in terms of complying to the wide range of use-cases.
Lack of offline reporting puts an unnecessary dependency on the internet.
Since, the environment is centralized, a bad query can shutdown development of reports.
Client tools such as framework manager, transformer GUI, dynamic cube designer, Cognos Insight are restricted to windows. It would be better if they are extended to Ubuntu, Mac or Linux too.
Support for Chrome browser is minimal.
Training materials need to be improved.
Plugin for R is good to have.
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Cognos provides a stack for enterprise-wide reporting. It can be deployed, managed, updated and migrated very easily. Worth an investment for medium and large capital investment companies. Once learned, it has alternatives for most of the report navigation requirements. However, if one is looking for remarkable dashboards, then it Tableau and QlikView are better options at present. Licensing rules are bit tricky. Otherwise, overall a good experience but has a steep learning curve.
Used as a front end analytical tool for many organizations. I cannot speak to other organizations but in my organization we develop the reports mostly as canned reports with limited ad-hoc ability. I cannot even begin to say what problems it addresses because it is used so much. One example is a traceability tool for vehicle components.
Pros
I very rarely find something it cannot do. There is always a way to get around a problem you are facing, it may just take some critical thinking to get there.
Framework manager is excellent. I prefer it over Tableau extracts.
The exporting options has been used a lot by my team. The business users we deal with are still very much in favor of Excel and this allows the data to be in a familiar format should they chose to do that.
Cons
Cognos is not the prettiest BI tool. It is very old-school in my opinion. This is not bad for all people, but I think the next generation of users will want something "prettier"
Very steep learning curve, but that comes along with the complexity of the tool
When developing a report, the way everything (tools, pages, etc) are laid out is confusing. It took me months to get it down. Again, this tool is very complex and good at what it does, so that it to be expected.
Likelihood to Recommend
For non-technical, business oriented users, I only turn to Cognos if other BI tools cannot get the job done. It is definitely the most capable BI tool I use, but others are much more user friendly.
VU
Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology (Automotive company, 10,001+ employees)
Cognos is being used across our entire company as a way to view and analyze portions of our businesses data. It allows us to review different orders, costing, projections, and financial analytics. It has proved to be a very valuable program in this process.
Pros
Intuitive. Drag and drop features for creating reports work the way that you think they should.
Generates information quickly. Lag time behind running large complex reports is not long.
Easy to share and edit different reports between different users.
Works on Multiple platforms.
Cons
Only available on windows. Macintosh requires Parallels to let the program run.
Likelihood to Recommend
Giving specific examples of your company's data and what you are hoping to accomplish - can Cognos do this simply and efficiently?
