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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Cognos Analytics

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/AIBM 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.

    $11.25

    per month per user

    Microsoft Dynamics 365

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Dynamics 365 is a CRM providing sales, marketing, and service functionality. It is offered as SaaS and on-premise. Dynamics 365 is part of the larger Dynamics suite of business intelligence and ERP products.

    $44

    per month

    Pricing
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft Dynamics 365
    Editions & Modules
    On Demand - Standard
    USD 11.25
    per month per user
    On Demand - Premium
    USD 44.90
    per month per user
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft Dynamics 365
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft Dynamics 365
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    92 Answers
    88%
    Would buy again
    23 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    79 Answers
    87%
    Delivers good value for the price
    20 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    91 Answers
    88%
    Happy with the feature set
    23 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    55 Answers
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    64 Answers
    82%
    Implementation went as expected
    18 Answers
    Features
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft Dynamics 365
    BI Standard Reporting
    Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.7
    138 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    -
    Ratings
    Pixel Perfect reports7.6129 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable dashboards8.0136 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Formatting Templates7.5131 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad-hoc Reporting
    Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.9
    138 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    -
    Ratings
    Drill-down analysis7.4136 Ratings00 Ratings
    Formatting capabilities8.3139 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with R or other statistical packages7.397 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report sharing and collaboration8.6133 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Output and Scheduling
    Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    9.2
    136 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    -
    Ratings
    Publish to Web9.836 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publish to PDF8.2132 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Versioning9.833 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report Delivery Scheduling8.2134 Ratings00 Ratings
    Delivery to Remote Servers9.918 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data Discovery and Visualization
    Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.4
    124 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    -
    Ratings
    Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)7.9121 Ratings00 Ratings
    Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization8.0114 Ratings00 Ratings
    Predictive Analytics6.7110 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pattern Recognition and Data Mining6.947 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access Control and Security
    Comparison of Access Control and Security features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    7.8
    130 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    -
    Ratings
    Multi-User Support (named login)7.5129 Ratings00 Ratings
    Role-Based Security Model7.5127 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)7.4127 Ratings00 Ratings
    Report-Level Access Control8.257 Ratings00 Ratings
    Single Sign-On (SSO)8.6111 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Capabilities
    Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    6.4
    109 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    -
    Ratings
    Responsive Design for Web Access6.8104 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Application6.390 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile6.696 Ratings00 Ratings
    Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
    Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    9.2
    87 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    -
    Ratings
    REST API7.683 Ratings00 Ratings
    Javascript API7.779 Ratings00 Ratings
    iFrames9.912 Ratings00 Ratings
    Java API10.013 Ratings00 Ratings
    Themeable User Interface (UI)9.915 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizable Platform (Open Source)9.99 Ratings00 Ratings
    Sales Force Automation
    Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    7.7
    84 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings7.981 Ratings
    Workflow management00 Ratings7.980 Ratings
    Territory management00 Ratings7.160 Ratings
    Opportunity management00 Ratings7.672 Ratings
    Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings7.879 Ratings
    Contract management00 Ratings7.961 Ratings
    Quote & order management00 Ratings7.258 Ratings
    Interaction tracking00 Ratings8.171 Ratings
    Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings7.362 Ratings
    Customer Service & Support
    Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    8.0
    68 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Case management00 Ratings7.863 Ratings
    Call center management00 Ratings7.950 Ratings
    Help desk management00 Ratings8.557 Ratings
    Marketing Automation
    Comparison of Marketing Automation features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    7.9
    78 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Lead management00 Ratings7.672 Ratings
    Email marketing00 Ratings8.171 Ratings
    CRM Project Management
    Comparison of CRM Project Management features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    8.0
    76 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Task management00 Ratings8.171 Ratings
    Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings8.054 Ratings
    Reporting00 Ratings8.065 Ratings
    CRM Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    7.6
    77 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Forecasting00 Ratings7.667 Ratings
    Pipeline visualization00 Ratings7.873 Ratings
    Customizable reports00 Ratings7.476 Ratings
    Customization
    Comparison of Customization features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    7.7
    80 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Custom fields00 Ratings7.678 Ratings
    Custom objects00 Ratings7.572 Ratings
    Scripting environment00 Ratings7.956 Ratings
    API for custom integration00 Ratings7.861 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    8.8
    75 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.869 Ratings
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.770 Ratings
    Social CRM
    Comparison of Social CRM features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    7.7
    44 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Social data00 Ratings7.843 Ratings
    Social engagement00 Ratings7.643 Ratings
    Integrations with 3rd-party Software
    Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    7.2
    65 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Marketing automation00 Ratings7.665 Ratings
    Compensation management00 Ratings6.834 Ratings
    Platform
    Comparison of Platform features of IBM Cognos Analytics and Microsoft Dynamics 365
    Feature
    IBM Cognos Analytics
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Dynamics 365
    6.8
    56 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Mobile access00 Ratings6.856 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft Dynamics 365
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    Cyfe
    Score4 out of 10
    Salesflare
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Qlik Cloud Analytics (Qlik Sense)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Kintone
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Sisense
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Oracle Sales
    Score8.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft Dynamics 365
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (158 ratings)
    7.9
    (104 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.4
    (31 ratings)
    8.0
    (20 ratings)
    Usability
    7.3
    (10 ratings)
    7.8
    (34 ratings)
    Availability
    8.6
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    1.0
    (9 ratings)
    8.0
    (11 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.7
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    Configurability
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    3.8
    (3 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    8.6
    (40 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Data Sources
    8.3
    (40 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    5.5
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    6.4
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Cognos AnalyticsMicrosoft Dynamics 365
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    For Transaction monitoring, we build reports for executive management, providing insights into the number of alerts, the types or categories of detection scenarios, the risk profile, and a snapshot of high- or urgent-priority cases to be reported to AUSTRAC. Congos helps to build the report by ingesting alert data exported from SAS datasets. It joins with other data from Teradata and Customer Hub (Oracle).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Provides our company access to manage and customize the folds tailored to our needs. We needed to have certain paragraphs on certain paperwork per customer. MD 365 has those options to customize where needed and remove when not. The system is easy to navigate, and training can be done in a matter of days, even without prior knowledge of the system or similar systems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    IBM
    • Enterprise reporting - Create, customise, and run reports on sales trends, consumer sentiment, etc.
    • Dashboard creation and data exploration & analysis - Using drag and drop feature to create ad-hoc visualisation. Additionally, using AI powered natural language query feature for data analysis and dashboard input (formation of pie, bar, line charts). It's useful for no-technical person to put queries around the spreadsheet data to get quick answers.
    • Building insights for accurate decision making - Package reports with data backed insights for stakeholders in pdf, and Excel format to support business ad-hoc cases, forecasting and strategic recommendations on relevant asks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Best to use for AP - like in our organization, there are plenty of AP bills, so with Dynamics, we can quickly enter the same into the Excel utility, which means CSV-based upload, and then we can easily upload the same to the software. It's a time saver.
    • Best for Bank reconciliation - MS Dynamics makes Bank reconciliation easy. Banks can easily sync with software and easily get reconciled.
    • Generating invoices to customers and directly sending them to their inbox is easy with this software.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    IBM
    • IBM Cognos Analytics enables customer data segmentation, which is essential for marketing, improving and streamlining purchasing behavior and preferences. This helps companies create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.
    • Our clients Through data analysis, we can identify and observe trends in the behavior of other clients, allowing us to anticipate needs and adjust strategies to avoid consequences.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Small learning curve, obviously. You won't figure this out in a day, a week, or even a month. But given time, you can learn to be an expert. Or you can always get a consultant or hire in somebody. But learning the tool isn't out of the questions by any means.
    • Licensing can be confusing at times and isn't cheap, but it is cheaper than Salesforce. Plus no additional fees for data calls to better integrate your D365 CE data with other systems.
    • The Classic user interface left a bit to be desired, but now with the much-improved Unified Interface, the web client and the mobile client look the same, much more modern, and have more flexibility and power behind them for customizers as well.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    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
    Microsoft
    CRM has allowed us to keep all of our data in one place that is easy for all users within the company to view. I came into the company after they had been using CRM for about 4 years. They have all said that since we have used this it has helped us control work processes better, it has allowed us to be able to track things so much better, and has been something that has helped unite many processes that used to be all over the place. We are currently using CRM 4.0 and are planning on upgrading in the next 18 months to the 2011 version. Support for 4.0 is almost all but dried up. Understandably so. Some of the customization we have done, and a plugins we use, are now contained within the 2011 version so we are looking forward to that upgrade. We use an email marketing company as well, and they primarily support the 2011 version, but their product connects and is integrated within CRM. This is a great benefit as well so that all of our marketing information can be contained in one location.
    Read full review
    Usability
    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.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    The usability is easily adopted for users familiar with other Microsoft products. Dynamics 365 has several interfaces that cross over browsers and tablets. These multiple interfaces will be phased out and updated to a single unified interface eventually to provide the same usability across all devices. The backend configurations is slowly improving with the introduction of PowerApps compared to pre-D365 Online versions
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    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.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Our partner, Ledgeview Partners has been FANTASTIC to work with. They are always timely in their response and have taken time to understand our business and our specific needs. We've made a lot of advanced customizations and they have been a great help in making those updates.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    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.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    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.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    We used a data warehouse to house our data, and our IT team and implementation vendor worked diligently ahead of time to construct idea implementation plans. Out of millions of records- we had less than a dozen errors, which is remarkable. My major insight is simply having a group of completely devoted individuals working towards your goal who fully understand the desired outcome. Focused resources for implementation season are critical to success.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    Power BI is stronger for quick ad-hoc analysis and dashboards, but IBM Cognos Analytics is better when consistency, precision, and mass distribution matter. Tableau is best for interactive analysis, while IBM Cognos Analytics is better for standardized, repeatable enterprise reporting. Sigma shines for customizable dashboards and drill-down analysis while IBM Cognos Analytics holds an edge in data discovery and visualization.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Microsoft Dynamics was part of a system overhaul for a local school, and we looked at many products. If we had used it for a company with low turnover, then it might have been more feasible. They needed something a new person could learn quickly, someone who might also be learning marketing terms at the same time - especially if there is nobody to train the individual now expected to know the system. Similar issues occurred with all of these programs (we called it being too big for their britches), and one of the bigger things we liked was that it is more compatible with MS Office products in both technical and visual appeal. If you have a steady employees who use a CRM consistently, low turnover, and those who are very familiar with Office products, Dynamics would be the smartest option for you. Unfortunately, this was just not true for the school environment
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    On our purchase, I'd been interrogated about our usage. Our needs are met by Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is simple to use. With so much data and information available, we must ensure that it is presented correctly to managers. Due to a lack of use, we don't have to spend as much money on Salesforce.
    Read full review
    Scalability
    IBM
    We rate IBM Cognos Analytics a 9 out of 10 for overall scalability. The platform handles large numbers of users, reports, and analytical workloads very reliably. We have experienced strong performance even in demanding enterprise environments with substantial data volumes. Its architecture provides sufficient flexibility to scale resources according to demand, making it well suited for large, business-critical deployments.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Professional Services
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    My company's preferred program right now is Microsoft Dynamics 365. We use it to keep track of customers and important sales metrics in a streamlined manner. Anyone familiar with CRMs will find the tool extremely useful. Considering that we have a good turnover, this product will be used for its basic segments. As a result, there are few chances of error with Microsoft dynamics because it is so easy to use. Many options for recording data on these leads are available. It meets our needs and pays off.
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    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • The platform can be pretty pricey.
    • Convoluted contracts and they fine you for any breach during audits.
    • Things are changed between releases without any warning and break.
    • It is second to none at being able to customize list and crosstab type reports.
    • You can easily set up a report to be emailed out every day and even have it export the report to a shared folder.
    • On-prem environments can be scaled up pretty much as much as you would like.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • For those without a centralized, all in one solution for major HR, Finance and other departments, Microsoft Dynamics 365 has vastly improved employee time utilization and profit.
    • Migrating clients from on-premise to the cloud has reaped benefits including better security, no unscheduled downtime and frequent updates to functionality.
    • Those transferring from cheaper solutions have lost money in the aim to be better integrated with other Microsoft products and AI they don't really utilize.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

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