IBM Cognos Analytics

Score7.7 out of 10

637 Reviews and Ratings

What is IBM Cognos Analytics?

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.

Categories & Use Cases

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Java API
A Java application programming interface (API) is a list of all classes that are part of the Java development kit (JDK)
Category average: 7.8
Delivery to Remote Servers
Ability to deliver reports to remote servers
Category average: 7.9
iFrames
An iFrame is an HTML document embedded inside another HTML document on a website
Category average: 7.7

Predictive Analytics
Predictive Analytics is the ability to build forecasting models based on existing data sets.
Category average: 7.2
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
Category average: 7.4
Mobile Application
A dedicated app for iOS and/or Android.
Category average: 7.1

Most Frequent Users

Top 3 industries using IBM Cognos Analytics.

Based on HG Insights installation data

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#1 most frequent

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

17.3%

1,990 installations of 11,500

“In our organization, I use IBM Cognos Analytics for analyzing operational data”
— CEO, ZUZE Consulting LLC

#2 most frequent

Manufacturing

14.6%

1,679 installations of 11,500

#3 most frequent

Finance and Insurance

11.4%

1,312 installations of 11,500

“IBM Cognos Analytics serves as a central platform for data analysis and visualization.”
— VP Data Scientist, JPMorgan Chase (Enterprises)

Pros

Robust reporting and dashboard creation with customization and scheduling
Flexible data modeling and transformation capabilities
Extensive data connectivity for diverse sources

Cons

Steep learning curve for new users
User interface and design require refinement
Performance degradation with large datasets and slow dashboard responsiveness

Everette Sands

Solutions Engineer in Information Technology at Commonwealth Bank (501-1000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I work at a local bank in the Bahamas within the IT Department. For the time I've been here, which is about 10 years, just about every week I would receive a request or a phone call for a report to be run from various Departments. This procedure would of course take away critical time that could be used for other areas that I'm responsible for on a daily basis. We've recently implemented Cognos Analytics into our environment and I must say that ever since we incorporated the tool, users no longer have to depend on IT to provide usual week to week or month end reports. Users are now logging into Cognos and are now running their own report and in some instances, we also scheduled various reports which they would now receive via email. As simple as it sounds, this process was able to completely remove the heavy load of report request to IT from the end users. Cognos Analytics is superb!!!

Pros

Data Module Creation
Report Scheduling
Single Sign On Capability

Cons

Adding the ability to create modules a bit cleaner based on iSeries Files
Adaptivity to Data Types from the iSeries so no datatype conversions needs to executed

Return on Investment

Elimination of Physical Servers/3rd Party Reporting Tools

Alternatives Considered

SAP Crystal

Other Software Used

SAP Crystal, Visual LANSA

gunjan kushwaha View profile

snr BA in Finance and Accounting at westpac (10,001+ employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our FinCrime team manages programs such as KYC/CDD and transaction monitoring across various detection scenarios. The volume of data, frequency, and real-time vs. batch loading are always challenges for sourcing, cleansing, and transforming data from various systems in the bank, such as POS, ATM, Web, mobile, etc. We use Cognos to create a report for the executive board on the number of alerts raised as per risk profile.

Pros

Works as a centralized reporting layer for different capabilities like KYC/CDD.
Prepare Audit and reg reports for Austrac/APRA.
visibility into case volumes.
SLA/Backlog metrics.

Cons

Team needs time to learn the tool.
People prefer Power BI over this due to UI complexity, though it differs from person to person.
Connectors to snowflake not available but that could be just my bank.

Return on Investment

Helping with interna/external Audit report.
Prepare SAR/SMR for AUSTRAC.
Executive reports for management.
Dashboards for simplified user access and overall visibility into the health of a division like KYC/CDD/TM.

Alternatives Considered

SAS Anti-Money Laundering

Other Software Used

Dataiku, Snowflake, Teradata Vantage

Tony Higgins

System operations in Information Technology at DP Wagner (11-50 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It addresses problems related to data warehousers, help with poor decision making, and difficulties in identifying trends and other potential opportunities. We utilize the tool within our organization to better understand data, make informed decisions, and that advantage of other features like reporting, modeling, analysis, dashboards, and AI powered insights to better track trends.

Pros

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.

Cons

Have to regularly checking official IBM channels or newsletters for updates and changes.
The availability to work in a sandbox environments or trial versions of IBM Cognos Analytics to practice.
Better for On-Prem vs cloud.
The pricing is higher than some of their competitors.

Return on Investment

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.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Power BI and Tableau Cloud

Other Software Used

Microsoft Power BI, Tableau Desktop, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Sam Goldie

Support consultant in Information Technology at Capita (5001-10,000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I work for a business partner supporting a variety of customers using Cognos Analytics. I do everything from installation and maintenance to report tuning and training.

Pros

Modelling
Security

Cons

Licensing is overly complicated
Alerting about failed or long running reports
exporting content stores has become complicated/slow

Return on Investment

more in depth analysis of otherwise underused data points
removed steps in process for many customers

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Power BI

Other Software Used

Microsoft 365, Microsoft Power BI

Bernd Oerthle View profile

Head of analytic infrastructure in Engineering at ALH Gruppe (1001-5000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In our organization, we use IBM Cognos Analytics for Running entire reporting for 3k users. It's used for controlling the entire organisation no matter if it's financel services, sales or internal affairs and process or product calculations. Even used in end customer context to make personal insights on contracts available

Pros

Reporting
Crosstabs
Data modules
Data Sets

Cons

Dashboards
interoperability with planning

Return on Investment

In my experience, IBM Cognos Analytics has had a positive impact on our business objectives because Almost every report runs on IBM Cognos Analytics

Alternatives Considered

IBM Planning Analytics

Other Software Used

Snowflake, Microsoft Power BI, GitHub Copilot

Usability

IBM Cognos Analytics

What is IBM Cognos Analytics?

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