Likelihood to Recommend If complex close items need to be done in the correct order or multiple subs, FQ makes it a breeze to track. If your close is simple, or done with only a few people, their system might not be a great benefit. With a team of 20, we need a tool like this to keep everyone on the same page!
Read full review Our first and most basic scenario was to automatize the creation and publication/sharing of business reports that used to be created manually by employees throughout our organization. Using Cognos for that first use case worked well. The advanced analytics functionalities we used on the aggregated data were also as expected. However, the user interface is not always intuitive, and there is a steep learning curve, so I would recommend Cognos only to large organizations where there is a need for the most advanced functionalities (AI analysis/prediction).
Read full review Pros Provides a clear status of the month end close. Allows us to analyze tasks by team member and reassign as needed. It syncs with our ERP Netsuite to ensure balance sheet reconciliations can be tied out directly. It also connects with Slack to notify users of key deadlines and changes in review status for team tasks. Read full review 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. Read full review Cons A setting to allow for attachments to automatically be opened within the app (Adobe, Excel, etc.) rather than as a separate tab in the browser Some of our tasks are quarterly or annual so assigning a very specific date would be helpful Eliminate the need of "closing" review notes. Once we change the status to Resolved, that should be sufficient. Make Resolved and Closed one and the same Read full review Sometimes there might be performance issues when dealing with large and complex data. Although IBM provides full documentation but sometimes it's difficult to find answers to questions and connect with their customer support. It relies on external tools for data cleaning, transformation and also for some integration tasks. It can also improve on providing wider range of data sources for integration. Read full review Likelihood to Renew It has proven to enhance our procedures with closing. It is an effective tool that I would recommend to create a more efficient closing procedure and get the team more aligned. It increases the accountability among the staff and helps to keep us on task and on time. It is easy to sign into and has reminder emails for tasks that are coming up or late.
Read full review 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 FloQast is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. The only reason I don't give it a 10 is that the Flux Analysis feature is not great in terms of getting the information into the system. Once it's in, fantastic! But some work is needed
Read full review 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.
Read full review Reliability and Availability We have only noticed a slight slow down in accessing FloQast on a couple of occasions (near the beginning of a month when many people were likely trying to get online to close their books). The issue has always resolved itself with three to five minutes, so it's never been a hinderance.
Read full review 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
Read full review Performance FloQast's performance is great. The pages always load quickly, and reports are completed fast! I've never noticed any slowdown in our ERP from the interface with FloQast.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Support Rating They are rapid in their response. If they can't immediately offer a solution, they continue to keep in contact with you to let you know where they are in resolving your issues. The staff is friendly & speaks to you in layman's terms, not so high-tech that you can't understand
Read full review 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.
Read full review In-Person Training The FloQast team members are just so personable. FloQast has clearly done a great job hiring people who are not just good at what they do, but are also fun to work with! They have placed people in the right roles and the customer benefits from this. I have enjoyed every opportunity I've had to work with a FloQast team member on training.
Read full review 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.
Read full review Online Training The online training is good. But like all online, pre-recorded training, it is never quite as good as in-person or live training where one can ask questions or get clarification. That said, FloQast has an extensive training library and most of the time, if one finds they need help on a topic, it can be answered by going to the online training and watching appropriate recording.
Read full review 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
Read full review Implementation Rating Implementation occured before I started with the company (but despite the instruction to skip the question if I did not participate, the site required I put in a rating in order to move on to the next page)
Read full review 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We evaluated
BlackLine along with FloQast and ultimately decided to sign up with FloQast. Our team really liked the ability to leverage their existing Excel reconciliation templates that could link to the FloQast user interface. Comparatively, the pre-made reconciliation templates that were demonstrated in
BlackLine felt a bit more inflexible and felt like it would invite a longer implementation/conversion timeline.
Read full review In the past Management had used Excel and
Workiva capabilities to create the reporting dashboards that were being used to make decisions. Since switching to IBM Cognos Analytics the Company has been much more efficient and decision making has been streamlined. IBM Cognos Analytics was chosen due to its reputation and data visualization capabilities and neither have been wrong.
Read full review Contract Terms and Pricing Model I did not help in the purcase
Read full review Scalability We started using it with one client/customer and now use it with fourteen entities and plan to add two more in the next couple of months. It has made it possible to grow our business without hiring additional personnel. We can do more work with the same number of people
Read full review 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.
Read full review Return on Investment ROI has been quick. Using Floqast we were able to put off hiring additional headcount for a year due to the efficiencies we were able to garner. Floqast also helped with change management and process documentation. It centralized work papers into one easy to find location where in the past workpapers were disorganized. Read full review High ROI with well designed solutions. Supported by scalable deployment, robust security model and ability to create valuable content. High ROI where well designed data models can be deployed with a common metadata layer to a variety of users and use cases. High ROI in an environment that includes a variety of vendors and best of breed products within the overall platform Read full review ScreenShots