Cirrus Insight vs. IBM Cognos Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cirrus Insight
Score 6.3 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Cirrus Insight integrates Salesforce with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts. Instantly View Contextual Salesforce Information in Your Inbox. Save Emails & Attachments to Salesforce with a Click. Sync Your Google & Salesforce Calendars. Create & Edit Salesforce Records on the Fly. Customize Your Salesforce Workflow in Gmail. Add Google Contacts to Salesforce. Salesforce Tasks Integration. Salesforce Templates Integrated with Gmail.
$15
per month
IBM Cognos Analytics
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
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.
$10
per month per user
Pricing
Cirrus InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Editions & Modules
Starter
$27
per user/month
Closer
$45
per user/month
Rainmaker
$72
per user/month
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
Cirrus InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup Fee$500 per installationOptional
Additional DetailsPricing based on annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cirrus InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cirrus InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Cirrus Insight
-
Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.5
111 Ratings
8% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings7.6101 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings7.7109 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings7.1105 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Cirrus Insight
-
Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.6
113 Ratings
5% below category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings7.5110 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings7.5112 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings7.679 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings7.9108 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Cirrus Insight
-
Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.0
112 Ratings
4% below category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.327 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings7.7106 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings7.6109 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings8.112 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Cirrus Insight
-
Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.5
103 Ratings
5% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings7.798 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings7.994 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings7.291 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings7.229 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Cirrus Insight
-
Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.9
108 Ratings
7% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings8.0105 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings8.1104 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings7.2103 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.133 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings8.087 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Cirrus Insight
-
Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.1
89 Ratings
10% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings7.583 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.173 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings8.279 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Cirrus Insight
-
Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.6
70 Ratings
2% below category average
REST API00 Ratings7.467 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings7.965 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings8.39 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings6.911 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings7.110 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings7.87 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cirrus InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Small Businesses
Mailtrack
Mailtrack
Score 8.8 out of 10
Yellowfin
Yellowfin
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Mailtrack
Mailtrack
Score 8.8 out of 10
Reveal
Reveal
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Groove, a Clari company
Groove, a Clari company
Score 7.6 out of 10
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Jaspersoft Community Edition
Score 9.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cirrus InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
5.0
(22 ratings)
7.5
(136 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
8.7
(29 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(1 ratings)
7.4
(9 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(1 ratings)
8.6
(4 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
1.8
(9 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
7.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
5.8
(5 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
3.2
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cirrus InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Cirrus Insight
For someone who uses both Gmail and Salesforce as part of their main role, this software is an invaluable connector for them both. Some of the features are also not Salesforce specific - such as the Meeting Scheduler, which has proved invaluable to me, and I would recommend to any Gmail user who frequently set up meetings (either internally or externally).
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IBM
I use predictive analytics techniques, which can help me predict my future sales based on collected data, giving me insight into my market's trends.This market data can be analyzed, giving me the opportunity to gain in-depth insight into my market's competition and positioning it competitively, aided by developing strategies to improve my marketing approach.
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Pros
Cirrus Insight
  • Log email to Salesforce. You click one button and it logs for you. This is easier than adding the BCC email address that Salesforce provides as a way to log email.
  • Track views and engagement on these emails. It's nice to know if the email was opened and if links were clicked.
  • Update quick fields in Salesforce directly from their inbox using Cirrus. This prevented reps from needing to click into Salesforce, wait for it to load, then update fields like the phone number or name.
  • If the rep did need to open Salesforce, Cirrus provides a quick button to navigate to the Lead/Contact/Opportunity page quickly.
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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.
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Cons
Cirrus Insight
  • Outlook for Mac could use some work as an add-on because it's hard to read sometimes on my laptop. It's not a sidebar, like the Windows functionality, so it's harder to read.
  • Doesn't always find an opportunity, even though I know it's in our Salesforce system.
  • Randomly shuts down and doesn't log in properly at times. I've had to remove and re-download more than once.
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IBM
  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cirrus Insight
It is the best google to salesforce integration on the market. support is incredibly responsive and very helpful. They are constantly adding new features, and the current feature set is well beyond anything else that is currently offered in the market
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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.
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Usability
Cirrus Insight
Very easy to use. Everything opens in a familiar interface right inside the google apps sidebar. It brings in salesforce records, so as long as you know google apps / gmail and salesforce you'll be all set. It's point and click.
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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.
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Reliability and Availability
Cirrus Insight
Haven't had a down issue in the almost 2 years I've been using the product. Support is also super responsive.
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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
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Performance
Cirrus Insight
Pulls in salesforce data very quickly, and syncs very quickly.
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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.
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Support Rating
Cirrus Insight
No answers on this topic
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.
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In-Person Training
Cirrus Insight
No answers on this topic
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.
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Online Training
Cirrus Insight
No answers on this topic
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
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Implementation Rating
Cirrus Insight
The plugin is installed inside your internet browser as an extension/add-on. It can be found in most add on stores and is easy to install. Usually just a few clicks. It handles authorization for you once you sign in, and then takes care of all the rest. It couldn't be easier to get working right out of the box. You're up in running in less than 5 minutes.
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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.
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Alternatives Considered
Cirrus Insight
Yesware regularly sent me alerts that my emails had been opened by someone who I hadn't sent them to, from locations they couldn't possibly have been. I also don't recall its Salesforce activity logging working as smoothly, though I last used Yesware more than 12 months ago so my memory isn't as fresh as it could be
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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.
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Scalability
Cirrus Insight
No answers on this topic
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.
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Return on Investment
Cirrus Insight
  • Customer data is paramount and Cirrus Insight supports optimal data integrity.
  • Ease of capturing updated customer information and sales activity helps in forecasting, operational insight, etc.
  • Facilitates transition of sales opportunities by seeing a clear trail of correspondence and customer updates.
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IBM
  • Positive: It provides collaboration and sharing of knowledge with other users which provides centralized access to data and reports.
  • Positive: It helps organization to save time and be efficient as it provides self service analytics and automated workflows.
  • Positive: With its powerful analytics and reporting capabilities it enables user to explore and analyze their data, identify the trends and make decisions based on those insights.
  • Negative: Implementing Cognos Analytics will take investments on licensing cost, training and infrastructure.
  • Negative: As it provides many features and capabilities, it is an issue with organization having limited IT support configure and maintain the platform.
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ScreenShots

Cirrus Insight Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

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.