IBM Cognos Analytics vs OneStream™

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited:* simple reports for simple users ("big button-users", mostly managers or CEOs)* analyze date in cubes (finding "most important customer-group", finding "outliers" / "exceptions"; seeing historical development of...)Less appropriate: * beautiful reports for the general public! Be it paper, be it in electronic form (online)

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Non-profit Organization Management Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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Financial Reporting, Consolidations, Intercompany, Transaction Matching, Account Reconciliations, Budgeting and Forecasting, Long Range Planning, Analytics are all out of the box. In addition, you can do many things with the OneStream XF platform. People Planning allows you a granular approach to headcount planning. Thing Planning allows you to plan things like Inventory, CapEx, and other major expenditures.There's really nothing the CFO wants to do, that this product can't do!

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Andy Jorgensen

Senior Partner

MindStream AnalyticsComputer Software, 11-50 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Pixel Perfect reports

Customizable dashboards

Report Formatting Templates

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Drill-down analysis

Formatting capabilities

Integration with R or other statistical packages

Report sharing and collaboration

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Publish to Web

Publish to PDF

Report Versioning

Report Delivery Scheduling

Delivery to Remote Servers

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)

Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization

Predictive Analytics

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Multi-User Support (named login)

Role-Based Security Model

Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)

Single Sign-On (SSO)

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Responsive Design for Web Access

Dedicated iOS Application

Dedicated Android Application

Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

REST API

Javascript API

iFrames

Java API

Themeable User Interface (UI)

Customizable Platform (Open Source)

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Long-term financial planning

Financial budgeting

Forecasting

Scenario modeling

Management reporting

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Financial data consolidation

Journal entries and reports

Multi-currency management

Intercompany Eliminations

Minority Ownership

Local and consolidated reporting

Detailed Audit Trails

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Financial Statement Reporting

Management Reporting

Excel-based Reporting

Automated board and financial reporting

XBRL support for regulatory filing

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Personalized dashboards

Color-coded scorecards

KPIs

Cost and profitability analysis

Key Performance Indicator setting

Benchmarking with external data

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

Flat file integration

Excel data integration

Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

Pros

What IBM Cognos does really well is provide precise data that may otherwise be hard to retrieve from your primary accounting software. While doing so, it organizes this data such that it becomes much more meaningful to analyze.
IBM Cognos also does a fantastic job through the Query Studio module to give certain users the ability to create simple reports and modify existing reports, this allows the flexibility a user needs in getting the intended data.
IBM Cognos also provides the ability to utilize a BI tool for complicated reporting requirements or in cases when there are many data dependencies that exist. This BI tool enables Cognos to tackle many organizational and data challenges that companies face in the industry.

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Nabeel Chohan

Finance Manager, Project Accounting Group

Salient CRGTInformation Technology and Services, 1001-5000 employees

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Some Standard Reports are too good, which can be easily customized and fulfills the Audit needs.
Integration with Excel and Spread sheet component is the best feature, where in you can create dashboards in Excel as well. for Excel lovers it's nice.
Consolidation of the data is it's great strength, then comes the XF extensibility.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Electrical & Electronic Manufacturing Company, 10,001+ employees

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Cons

With the upgrade from Cognos 10 to Cognos 11, there were a lot of features, like run schedule once, weren't brought over to the newest version of Report Studio.
I felt like they were trying to chase Tableau and Qlik with dashboarding rather than focusing on their bread and butter of Report Studio or which other Business Intelligence tools don't do very well.

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Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Hospital & Health Care Company, 10,001+ employees

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Drag and drop functionality in managing metadata.
Allowing multiple admins to work in parallel on e.g. calculation rules.

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Verified User

Consultant in Professional Services

Information Services Company, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

IBM Cognos Analytics 7.9

Based on 23 answers

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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Sachin Karkun

Technical Lead

MindCraft Software Pvt. Ltd.Automotive, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

IBM Cognos Analytics 7.5

Based on 6 answers

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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Robert Goodman

Director, Business Intelligence & Analytics

Georgetown University5001-10,000 employees

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OneStream™ 8.0

Based on 1 answer

Overall usability as an end-user is very easy. There are more people in the system getting information now than the prior platform used. People are gathering their information quicker as well. From an administrator standpoint, there are fewer glitches and issues than the prior platform. This is very good.

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Jonathan Derkits

Senior Analyst – Tax Technologies

VictaulicMechanical Or Industrial Engineering, 1001-5000 employees

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Reliability and Availability

IBM Cognos Analytics 8.6

Based on 8 answers

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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Gerrit Goewey

Senior Analytics Consultant

Datamensional, LLC1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Performance

IBM Cognos Analytics 9.0

Based on 10 answers

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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Meghdeep Raval, PMP

Manager, Data Architecture

Hess CorporationOil & Energy

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

IBM Cognos Analytics 7.0

Based on 14 answers

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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Jonathan Kyrlach

Business Intelligence Architect

Everything But The HouseConsumer Goods, 201-500 employees

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OneStream™ 10.0

Based on 1 answer

OneStream is extremely responsive with support.

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Jonathan Derkits

Senior Analyst – Tax Technologies

VictaulicMechanical Or Industrial Engineering, 1001-5000 employees

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In-Person Training

IBM Cognos Analytics 8.7

Based on 4 answers

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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Robert Goodman

Director, Business Intelligence & Analytics

Georgetown University5001-10,000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Online Training

IBM Cognos Analytics 8.0

Based on 4 answers

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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Gerrit Goewey

Senior Analytics Consultant

Datamensional, LLC1-10 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

IBM Cognos Analytics 7.0

Based on 14 answers

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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Toni McKee

HR Systems Analyst II

First Horizon Corp.Banking, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Although Tableau has certain advantages, mostly in its best in class visualization capabilities, Cognos is catching up. Most of the other advantages of Tableau Desktop have been addressed in more recent versions of Cognos, for instance the ability to ingest personal data sources, self-service modeling, and improved dashboarding/visualization features. Tableau still lacks a centralized metadata and governance model and requires a bit more effort to implement at the enterprise level. Also, Cognos is still best in breed for standardized reporting, which is always a crucial need for organizations. More requirements can be centrally addressed by Cognos, but it is unlikely any organization will have just one BI tool.

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Albert Valdez

Solutions Architect

SenturusComputer Software, 51-200 employees

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OneStream is the way to go as it is a modern solution with unique features: The extensible dimensionality. These features will make your reporting easier because the level of granularity is not a puzzle/issue anymore. You can report different account granularity for your budget vs your actuals vs forecasts. This feature is unique to OneStream and to the CPM world! Also, OneStream is empowered with Microsoft technologies. Think Azure, MSSQL, VBdotNet, and IIS. That makes 2 leaders of technological industries working together. Another positive aspect of OS is that compared to other systems, even the update on-premises is simple: You only need to back up MSSQL databases and the app folders associated with it. No risks anymore and it's trouble-free for your IT!

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Nicolas ARGENTE

Sonum InternationalFinancial Services, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

IBM Cognos Analytics 10.0

Based on 1 answer

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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Robert Goodman

Director, Business Intelligence & Analytics

Georgetown University5001-10,000 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

(+) increased efficiency: Less time trying to figure out how to do something w/ another BI tool that may seem impossible -- Cognos will be able to do it 99% of the time
(-) increased training required: Training for Cognos had to be longer and more intensive than other BI tools. For example, my team members go through a week long 8-hour/day class and it was just enough to scratch the surface. A good base if required, but real world experience is the only way to become a Cognos pro.
(-) more end-user training: We do mostly canned reports with Cognos, so out end-users must be trainied. It is much harder to train them with Cognos than other BI tools. This is why I only turn to Cognos if I cannot accomplish my goal in another tool.

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Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Automotive Company, 10,001+ employees

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Easier to use than our previous systems.
More users than we ever had accessing the information.
A positive experience for our employees.

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Andy Jorgensen

Senior Partner

MindStream AnalyticsComputer Software, 11-50 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

IBM Cognos Analytics Editions & Modules

On-premise Edition

On Demand Standard	$15.00¹
On Demand Plus	$35.00¹
On Demand Premium	$70.00¹

Per User/Per Month

SaaS Edition

On Cloud Hosted	Contact for quote

Additional Pricing Details

30-day free trial available.

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Required

OneStream™ Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

We only sell to Enterprise customers so pricing for software is based on number of total users and it is simple. One user gets all software functionality. Implementation would be based on what business problem or problems we are looking to solve and implement OneStream XF for, financial consolidation and reporting or planning or account reconciliations, etc.

Rating Summary

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™

IBM Cognos Analytics

OneStream™