Dimensional Insight vs. IBM Cognos Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dimensional Insight
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Dimensional Insight provides integrated business intelligence and performance management solutions globally.N/A
IBM Cognos Analytics
Score 8.2 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
Dimensional InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
On Demand - Standard
$10.00
per month per user
On Demand - Premium
$40.00
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dimensional InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Dimensional InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Dimensional InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Dimensional Insight
8.3
2 Ratings
1% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.9
102 Ratings
4% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.01 Ratings8.593 Ratings
Customizable dashboards10.02 Ratings7.8100 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.02 Ratings7.497 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Dimensional Insight
8.0
2 Ratings
1% below category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.1
104 Ratings
0% below category average
Drill-down analysis10.02 Ratings8.1102 Ratings
Formatting capabilities5.02 Ratings8.1103 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages8.01 Ratings7.872 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.01 Ratings8.4100 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Dimensional Insight
10.0
2 Ratings
18% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.3
104 Ratings
1% below category average
Publish to Web10.02 Ratings8.327 Ratings
Publish to PDF10.02 Ratings8.798 Ratings
Report Versioning10.01 Ratings8.626 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling10.02 Ratings8.0101 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers10.01 Ratings8.112 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Dimensional Insight
9.0
1 Ratings
11% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.1
94 Ratings
0% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)9.01 Ratings8.089 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization9.01 Ratings8.286 Ratings
Predictive Analytics9.01 Ratings8.182 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.021 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
Dimensional Insight
10.0
2 Ratings
15% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
8.3
99 Ratings
4% below category average
Multi-User Support (named login)10.02 Ratings8.496 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model10.02 Ratings8.395 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)10.02 Ratings8.295 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)10.01 Ratings8.377 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
Dimensional Insight
9.0
2 Ratings
12% above category average
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.3
83 Ratings
8% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.01 Ratings7.977 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile10.01 Ratings8.174 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings7.368 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
Dimensional Insight
-
Ratings
IBM Cognos Analytics
7.5
62 Ratings
5% below category average
REST API00 Ratings7.359 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings7.658 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
Dimensional InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Small Businesses
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Reveal
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.7 out of 10
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User Ratings
Dimensional InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.1
(127 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(27 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(8 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(4 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Dimensional InsightIBM Cognos Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Dimensional Insight
Well suited - as stated before - allows user to answer their own questions.
Read full review
IBM
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.
Read full review
Pros
Dimensional Insight
  • The product is excellent!
  • Experienced DI Consultants with a broad knowledge in both, product and client data.
  • Customer service and technical support is always available; very professional and investigate reported issues until resolved.
Read full review
IBM
  • It provides statistical analysis and predictive modeling which helps to forecast sales trends based on data and other factors.
  • It provides user friendly interface which helps users to explore data without extensive IT support. Like sales and marketing teams can use self service BI to analyze customer data and personalize campaigns for marketing.
  • It integrates well with IBM products and also with third party which enables organization to integrate with different products for better results and growth.
  • It provides security and governance features which maintains confidentiality, and compliance of data. It impose HIPAA compliance by providing role based access and encryption to protect sensitive data.
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Cons
Dimensional Insight
  • Some screens are not adjustable for sizing.
  • Better capability to import from a spreadsheet.
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IBM
  • Uses a lot of the CPU of PC and can be only item running on computer sometimes
  • The error descriptions could be worded differently to help users find out what is exactly wrong with the report they are trying to write
  • Missing third party integration functionality that works succinctly
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Likelihood to Renew
Dimensional Insight
No answers on this topic
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
Dimensional Insight
Navigation thru the Diver portal is simple; some users have trouble but it also depends on how the analysts build models and present the reports with quickviews selections and report layouts. I am aware of DI capability to access reports thru mobile devices but I have not experience it first hand.
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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
Dimensional Insight
No answers on this topic
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
Dimensional Insight
No answers on this topic
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
Dimensional Insight
Support is always quick to answer and good to deal with.
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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
Dimensional 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
Dimensional 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
Dimensional Insight
I don't have direct experience with the first time DI was implemented but on subsequent upgrades there have been positive experiences with support and seamless transitions to avoid users discomfort.
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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
Dimensional Insight
Dimensional Insight is a lot easier to design and use. User interface is much more intuitive.
Read full review
IBM
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 everything in between
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Scalability
Dimensional 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
Dimensional Insight
  • Increased efficiency - very positive.
  • Sales Reporting is Interactive and Light Years ahead of previous solution.
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IBM
  • I've rebuilt a few metadata models to make the associated reports run at around a fifth of the time.
  • I was able to write and sell an IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson extension pack to add additional functionality and to make report author's lives easier.
Read full review
ScreenShots