Overview
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.
It's like a Swiss Army knife for our data
IBM Cognos Analytics Review
Great Data Visual tool that's let down by lack of integrations & customer support.
IBM Cognos for Automation, Business Performance Insights, and Advanced Learning
Unlocking Business Insights with IBM Cognos Analytics
The ability to unify data makes it easier for the end user to create the final report.
IBM Cognos it's worth testing it
Adopting an IBM-based corporate performance management solution
IBM Cognos Analytics: The best blend of PowerBI, Tableau & Qlik
Best Business AI Tool
IBM Cognos Analytics
Great for data analysis
Best translation of AI into Business Analytics
Powerful and reliable BI tool
How IBM Cognos Analytics Differs From Its Competitors
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Once IBM implements it, we'll …
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Help them to run their own job with schedule and automate it, not supported by IT anymore. they own [it] …
Data Security and Quality
Quality of the data depends on the data sources we use in [IBM Cognos Analytics], we have data governance department which help them to manage the purchase order, list of licensed users, it helps them to develop the process to maintain.
We always …
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Self-Service
Data Security and Quality
Awards
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Popular Features
- Formatting capabilities (104)8.181%
- Drill-down analysis (103)8.181%
- Report Delivery Scheduling (102)8.080%
- Customizable dashboards (101)7.878%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
On Demand - Standard
$10.00
On Demand - Premium
$40.00
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee optional
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $10 per month per user
Product Demos
IBM Cognos Analytics Product Tour
Features
BI Standard Reporting
Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.
- 8.5Pixel Perfect reports(94) Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports are highly-formatted reports with graphics and ability to preview the report before printing.
- 7.8Customizable dashboards(101) Ratings
Customizable dashboards are dashboards providing the builder some degree of control over the look and feel and display options.
- 7.4Report Formatting Templates(98) Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.
- 8.1Drill-down analysis(103) Ratings
Drill down analysis is the ability to get to a further level of detail by going deeper into the hierarchy.
- 8.1Formatting capabilities(104) Ratings
Ability to format output e.g. conditional formatting, lines, headers, footers.
- 7.8Integration with R or other statistical packages(73) Ratings
Integration with the open-source R predictive modeling environment.
- 8.4Report sharing and collaboration(101) Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration is the ability to easily share reports with others.
Report Output and Scheduling
Ability to schedule and manager report output.
- 8.3Publish to Web(27) Ratings
- 8.7Publish to PDF(99) Ratings
- 8.6Report Versioning(26) Ratings
Report versioning is the assignment of version numbers to each version of a report to help in tracking.
- 8Report Delivery Scheduling(102) Ratings
Report Delivery Schedule is the ability to have reports delivered to a destination at a specific data and time.
- 8.1Delivery to Remote Servers(12) Ratings
Ability to deliver reports to remote servers
Data Discovery and Visualization
Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.
- 8Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)(90) Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats are canned visualization types that can be selected to visualize different kinds of data.
- 8.2Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization(87) Ratings
Location analytics is the visualization of geographical or spatial data.
- 8.1Predictive Analytics(83) Ratings
Predictive Analytics is the ability to build forecasting models based on existing data sets.
- 8Pattern Recognition and Data Mining(22) Ratings
Pattern recognition and data mining mean the ability to recognize hidden patterns in large quantities of data.
Access Control and Security
Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.
- 8.4Multi-User Support (named login)(97) Ratings
Named model access means that users have access based on name and password.
- 8.3Role-Based Security Model(96) Ratings
Role-based access means that access to data is determined by job or position in the corporation.
- 8.2Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)(96) Ratings
Multiple access permission levels means that different levels of users have different rights.
- 8.4Report-Level Access Control(25) Ratings
Report-level access control means that the type of report determines who has access to it.
- 8.3Single Sign-On (SSO)(78) Ratings
Allows users to use one set of login credentials to access multiple applications
Mobile Capabilities
Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
- 7.9Responsive Design for Web Access(77) Ratings
Web design aimed at producing easy-to-read sites across a range of different devices.
- 7.3Mobile Application(68) Ratings
A dedicated app for iOS and/or Android.
- 8.1Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile(74) Ratings
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another
- 7.3REST API(59) Ratings
REST is an architecture style for designing networked applications
- 7.6Javascript API(58) Ratings
A Javascript API is a type of API
- 8.3iFrames(9) Ratings
An iFrame is an HTML document embedded inside another HTML document on a website
- 6.9Java API(11) Ratings
A Java application programming interface (API) is a list of all classes that are part of the Java development kit (JDK)
- 7.1Themeable User Interface (UI)(10) Ratings
A themeable user interface means that a specific visual them can be applied to it
- 7.8Customizable Platform (Open Source)(7) Ratings
A customizable, open source API Gateway is a fast and scalable type of API
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is IBM Cognos Analytics?
IBM Cognos Analytics Features
BI Platform Features
- Supported: Administration via Web Interface
- Supported: Live Connection to External Data
- Supported: Snapshot of External Data
- Supported: In-memory data model
- Supported: OLAP (Pre-processed cube representation)
- Supported: Multi-Data Source Reporting (Blending)
- Supported: ETL Capability
- Supported: ETL Scheduler
Supported Data Sources Features
- Supported: MS Excel Workbooks
- Supported: Text Files (CSV, etc)
- Supported: Oracle
- Supported: MS SQL Server
- Supported: IBM DB2
- Supported: MySQL
- Supported: ODBC
- Supported: Cloudera Hadoop
- Supported: IBM Netezza
- Supported: SAP Hana
- Supported: Salesforce
- Supported: SAP
BI Standard Reporting Features
- Supported: Pixel Perfect reports
- Supported: Customizable dashboards
- Supported: Report Formatting Templates
Ad-hoc Reporting Features
- Supported: Drill-down analysis
- Supported: Formatting capabilities
- Supported: Predictive modeling
- Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
- Supported: Report sharing and collaboration
Report Output and Scheduling Features
- Supported: Publish to PDF
- Supported: Output Raw Supporting Data
- Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling
Data Discovery and Visualization Features
- Supported: Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
- Supported: Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
- Supported: Predictive Analytics
- Supported: Support for Machine Learning models
- Supported: Pattern Recognition and Data Mining
- Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
Access Control and Security Features
- Supported: Multi-User Support (named login)
- Supported: Role-Based Security Model
- Supported: Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
- Supported: Report-Level Access Control
- Supported: Table-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
- Supported: Field-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
- Supported: Single Sign-On (SSO)
Mobile Capabilities Features
- Supported: Responsive Design for Web Access
- Supported: Mobile Application
- Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding Features
- Supported: REST API
- Supported: Javascript API
Additional Features
- Supported: AI Forecasting
IBM Cognos Analytics Integrations
IBM Cognos Analytics Competitors
IBM Cognos Analytics Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android |
Supported Countries | Global |
Supported Languages | English, French, German, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Simplified Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew, Urdu, Farsi |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(580)Attribute Ratings
- 9.8Likelihood to Renew27 ratings
- 8.6Availability4 ratings
- 9Performance5 ratings
- 8Usability8 ratings
- 10Support Rating8 ratings
- 8Online Training4 ratings
- 8.7In-Person Training4 ratings
- 7Implementation Rating7 ratings
- 8Configurability2 ratings
- 8.3Product Scalability3 ratings
- 7.3Ease of integration3 ratings
- 7Vendor pre-sale1 rating
- 7Vendor post-sale1 rating
- 2.5Data Visualization4 ratings
- 8.3Data Sources40 ratings
- 8.6Data Sharing and Collaboration40 ratings
- 8.7IBM Cognos Reporting 4.14.2159 ratings
- 8.3IBM Cognos Data Modeling 4.14.212 ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 27)- advanced modeling
- reporting and dashboarding
- integration with engineer toolsets
- admin access
- re-running reports
- user experience (modernization)
Unlocking Business Insights with IBM Cognos Analytics
Use Case:
Supply Chain Optimization
Sales and marketing analytics
Customer segmentation and analysis
- 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.
- 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.
When it comes to financial planning processes, Cognos Analytics is suitable as it provides budgeting, forecasting capabilities. It helps in creating, analyzing forecasts and budgets.
When organization need to manage and monitor performances across different departments and teams Cognos Analytics is used to track KPIs, set targets and measure performance against thresholds.
Less Appropriate Scenarios:
For small stakeholders with limited resources, it might be concerning as it takes investment in cost, training and infrastructure. For them, it is cost effective to use simpler analytics tool.
For simpler and easier visualization, Cognos Analytics is not appropriate as it offers advanced analytics options and might be difficult to use and navigate through the platform.
It is not suited for those use cases, where high volume of data is streamed on real time as it offers near real time data integration.
The ability to unify data makes it easier for the end user to create the final report.
- Cognos Analytics integrates with data sources like databases and spreadsheets, as well as cloud storage platforms, so you can view and analyze data across multiple sources in a single interface.
- Advanced Analytics Cognos Analytics provides advanced analytics capabilities such as predictive analytics, statistical modeling, and more, so you can discover hidden trends, predict future events, and make decisions based on data.
- Interactive visualization The platform offers a wide range of visualizations, from charts and graphs to interactive maps, so you can present your data in a way that is visually appealing and easy to understand. You can also customize the visualizations to fit your specific needs and preferences.
- Optimizing Natural Language Processing (NLP): While NLP is a powerful tool, it doesn’t always deliver accurate or relevant outcomes. Optimizing NLP to increase precision and responsiveness would improve user experience and productivity.
Great for data analysis
- Data Analytics
- Business Intelligence
- Data security
- User Interface is old and it should be updated
- Performance is not same everytime
Powerful and reliable BI tool
We also use it for Data exploration/cleansing efforts in initial stages of our Machine Learning projects and to run statistical analytics on various data sets.
- AI assistant is handy and speeds up intial setup
- Data exploration and discovery
- Excel charting
- Integrates with wide range of data sources
- Clunky UI
- Not as widely used as Qlik & Tableau and hence lacks community
- Lots of minor bugs
- Needs initial training as its not as intuitive.
- Support is lacking compared to competitors
It's less suited for use by Machine Learning engineers/developers to probe data and derive statistical insights from datasets.
Cognos Analytics for Enterprise reporting
- Common metadata platform that enables reporting, dashboards, ad hoc access and advanced capabilities
- integrates well with a broad range of databases, authentication providers
- provides content creation capabilities at different levels of complexity to make more people with a range of skills productive.
- metadata modelling capabilities could provide greater capabilities to do common data engineering tasks.
- mapping and visualization capabilities could be improved.
- cloud deployment could be more advanced.
Congrats on Cognos
- Reporting Tabular Format
- Arrangement and Alignment
- Ad Hoc Reporting.
- Access to multiple datasets and restrictions based control
- Dashboarding and multiple charts
- Performance
- Involvement of statistics
- Easy to use functions
Excellent solution even for Medium & Small Startups
- Clean data
- Produce ad-hoc reports
- Dashboards
- Data analysis
- Marketing
- Better Excel integration
- Price
Sharing reports is possible, easy and effective.
- It is a reliable and scalable platform.
- It offers data connectors including SQL Server, CSV, Excel, and more.
- Multiple integrations.
- Flexible deployment options.
- Does not provide a free trial.
- It is difficult to learn.
- It is not easy to use and implement for non-technical users.
My current client is a large pharmaceutical company who uses IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson across multiple divisions. I've been brought in to help with the finance team.
IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson is flexible enough to make their reporting do everything they want. A major focus was ensuring high visibility reports work on mobile devices. Because IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson allows JavaScript and lets authors directly define HTML, I can make responsive reports that behave perfectly for any sized screen.
Another focus was expanding the default functionality in IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson through a series of JavaScript controls. Writing back directly to TM1, sending users emails from a button inside the report, or exporting reports to PowerPoint, the API available in IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson makes writing these controls quick and easy.
- Pixel perfect reports. If a client can provide a pixel-perfect mockup, I can make the report indistinguishable from the mockup.
- Data security. It doesn't matter who the user is; when they log in and run a report, they will only see the data they are permitted to see.
- Performant reports on large data. Many tools have issues running on tables containing only a few million rows. Cognos can consistently run reports on multi-billion row tables without issue.
- Embedding reports in third-party tools. With Cognos Mashup Services, it is possible to build a report in IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson and call it programmatically. Need straight HTML? No problem. JSON? Atom? All good.
- Data modules still can't match the flexibility of the framework manager. When dealing with large data models, or multi-grain, FM still wins.
- The new native graphs, while pretty, still can't match the version 10 graphs in terms of flexibility or options. It is possible to import third-party graphs, but it's a pain.
- Some functionality, like version control, is only available through third parties. Motio or BSP.
IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson - adaptable to different situations and data processing environments.
- Integrated ETL tools.
- Data export in multiple formats (PDF, Excel and CSV)
- Fast and accurate data recovery.
- Less expensive.
- Scalability and flexibility to work.
- Does not support multidimensional analysis.
IBM Cognos Delivers Value for Small-Medium Sized Businesses
- Automates reporting
- Enables precise reporting from database
- Enables users to share reports easily
- The user interface is slow to move from screen to screen.
- I wish there was a search function to find our data elements in the data warehouse.
- It would be helpful to have more clear error messages that you could better use to determine what needs to be changed.
IBM Cognos analytics 10.2 - Admin review.
We have created packages and cubes using the tools.
Matching source and target difference, generating balance reports.
- Easy to generate reports
- User friendly
- Training user to analyses, running queries
- User based licensing.
- IBM service restart taking more time.
- Various error when deploying SSO
[IBM Cognos Analytics] is good among these, can able to connect all the data sources without issue like ODBC, JDBC.
I don't think it is less appropriate. it is highly recommended to use from my [perspective].
- Automated report distribution
- Governed data
- Self-service
- Data modelling
- Reporting & dashboards
- Consistency of use in the extensive set of available visualisations.
- Software quality control to prevent bugs when upgrading.
- Administration tools (need 3rd party software for batch admin tasks).
IBM Cognos Analytics Review
Addresses practically all our important, and most of our less important business questions.
- Ad hoc combination of attributes to select data (in order to analyze data).
- Range of front-ends (cubes, standard reports, query- and report-studio for power-users).
- Integration of diagram-functionality in cubes.
- Downloading in different formats (csv, xls, pdf,...).
- OLAP-cubes MUST IMMEDIATELY be upgraded to 64-bit-technology (if not, we are lost as Cognos/IBM-customer).
- Easier integration of complex authorisation systems (concepts) into cubes (vertical as well as horizontal authorisation).
- Much more statistics-functionality in cubes! (IBM bought SPSS 10 years ago!! where is the benefit of Cognos-users!!)!!!
* 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)
How we use IBM Cognos Analytics at Office Depot
- Schedules and delivery of reports
- Visualizations in the latest version 11.1.7
- Ease of use for end users
- Ability to allow users ad-hoc reporting
- Active reports (disconnected/portable reports)
- More up-to-date functions available with recent RDBS technologies like Snowflake
- Better handling of in memory capabilities (cache, datasets)
I can't think of a scenario where IBM Cognos Analytics is less appropriate. A lot of times it depends a lot on the way the back-end data is stored. I've heard users and companies complain about IBM Cognos Analytics' performance, but again, I think this has to be with different data sources to access the company's data. I've also heard that compared to Tableau Desktop, IBM Cognos Analytics is still "not there" in regard to visualizations.
Cognos is a great enterprise tool
- IBM cognos is great as an enterprise tool.
- Being able to create cubes and packages that can be used to pull exactly what you want to see specific to your group.
- IBM Cognos allows multiple users to go in and change the report in a way that they want to see without changing the data that is provided to everyone as a whole.
- IBM Cognos has room for improvement in its charts and graphs. They are awesome on their own but compared to Tableau fall a little short.
- The speed of IBM Cognos could run faster, however considering the amount of data it is able to pull without slowing down makes up for the overall slower processing.
- The ease of setup and usage has a bigger learning curve compared to similar reporting products but once again the return on effort makes it worth that steep curve.
Cognos too Powerful?
- Self Service
- Alerting
- Scalability
- Better visuals
- Lower cost
- Increased speed and performance
What, son?
- Great for visualizing data in an appealing way.
- Makes analytics and the process of "asking questions" very easy for people.
- Learning how to work the product is easy as well.
- Ability to link to a variety of data sources.
- Shortcuts are great, but sometimes provide a roadblock when trying to dive deeper into the data.
- Customizing the look of charts would be great.
Review of Cognos BI
- It's very easy to implement Cognos BI in an organization, easy to learn and maintain the system.
- Framework Manager packages provide central metadata management of underlying database or data warehouse to be used in reports. Unlike SSRS or other reporting tools where updating a single column in 1000 reports means 1000 manual changes, in Cognos you just update the framework model and it's done.
- Cognos Workspace is amazing at giving consumer level users the power to manage the presentation of a dashboard from colors to layout format to what data they want to see. They have the power and capability to customize any dashboard to their needs.
- Ad hoc Analysis capability of Cognos for enterprise level application is very easy to use, user friendly, and easy to maintain. Power users can get help from professional developers where needed and still can go back to using the ad hoc studio without any issues. This means the ad hoc analysis tools give you the power of professional reporting/analysis tools when needed and still be simple in interface and easy to use.
- Charting and visualization in Cognos 10 version was not best of the best available. But with the new release of Cognos Analytics (Cognos 11) IBM have improved it quite a bit.
- Map Analysis/Reporting and geospatial capabilities needs to be improved.
Cognos feedback
- You can develop a very nice report in a short time frame.
- Cognos Query is a very powerful tool for ad-hoc reports.
- Dimensional model can replace cube building - less steps in development process.
- Query Studio can be improved further, so users can create a nice printable version.
- Analysis Studio is a great tool for ad-hoc analysis, but it doesn't allow you to create a report with a header and footer and can't be used for aa printable version.
- I don't like Cognos graphs very much. It is difficult to control the graph's appearance.
Meghdeep
- Framework Manager (metadata modeling tool) is a pretty flexible tool for any complex data modeling.
- With use of Report Studio you can handle any business logic for reporting.
- Event studio is used for event based scheduling.
- Business Insight advanced is used for ad-hoc reporting.
- Query studio out-of-the-box is a bit primitive. It is used for ad-hoc reporting, but if something is changed in Query Studio by and end user, it's not possible to see what exactly was changed without going into Report Studio. This is problematic as it means that end users need licenses for Report Studio which is not feasible.
- Metric studio we have not used at all, and don't know exact purpose of it.
Need better performance monitoring tool.
An Analytics Consultant's Perspective
- Dynamic Query Mode with a large number of Relational and OLAP database compatibility such as Oracle and Essbase, Microsoft SQL Server and Analysis Services, SAP BW, IBM DB2, Teradata, etc. makes for efficient backend queries no matter if the front end metadata is relational or multidimensional.
- Compatibility mode queries allow for custom ODBC and JDBC connection to made, so even if there is no native compatibility other databases can still be used as a source if needed.
- Dynamic Cubes are capable of querying against millions of rows in seconds when properly set up with sufficient hardware resources.
- Standard Reports are snappy, returning data and rendering quickly, as long as the pagination is kept to reasonable quantities.
- Active reports can be run offline and incorporate animation and dynamic filters. Keep in mind that the data doesn't refresh until the report is retrieved from the server again.
- Great interoperability between the different studios in the suite. Something made in Analysis or Query Studio can be converted to Report Studio easily. Workspace Advanced natively creates and opens Report Studio reports as well.
- Report Studio can convert a regular report into an active report. The reverse is not possible though.
- Workspace can take in individual charts or whole reports from other tools as widgets and even customize them for the specific dashboard being built.
- End users can make their own copies of a pre-built dashboard and adjust things such as changing conditional color labels or adding new calculated members.
- Interoperability with other IBM Cognos tools allows TM1 and SPSS to be used as data sources for reports, as well as directly used as widgets in Workspace dashboards.
- Centralized content store allows the different desktop tools to use the same logins and access the same shared resources as the server, such as data sources.
- Framework Manager is a very powerful tool that can create both dimensional and relational models simultaneously from the same underlying database.
- Framework Manager can work on any database design, it does not have to be a Kimball star schema.
- Framework Manager has built in tools for validating a model without having to do a complete publish
- Security for roles, users, etc. can be built directly into the model without any need for extra programming
- Framework Manager is a visual tool, and only requires rudimentary SQL knowledge to use effectively.
- Localization is supported natively and can be added to any model.
- Dynamic Query Manager can automatically create aggregation for Dynamic Cubes to optimize runtime.
- Reporting Bursting can be set up to send prefiltered reports via mail or some other means on regular intervals or when triggered by certain events, such as a particular number being too low.
- Administration for Multi-tenanted environments is built directly into Cognos
- Connecting multiple LDAP and AD systems simultaneously is supported, allowing users to use their normal company usernames and passwords
- Mobile support add on allows standard and Active reports to be displayed with a mobile device friendly interface automatically without requiring creating a separate version.
- Cognos Mashup Service can be used to embed reports in outside applications or provide data for external visualizations and tools.
- All tool interfaces are designed with the standard IBM patterns, so users already familiar with other IBM tools should be able to pick it up quickly..
- The server can run in most typical server environments such as Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc.
- Clustering across multiple machines is supported.
- Real Time Monitoring add on allows for visualization of up to the second data feeds.
- Drill down/up can be automatically implemented on reports using a Dimensional data model
- Drill through definitions can be set up to allow users to find related reports and automatically open them on the highlighted data.
- Reports and models made for the more lightweight Cognos Express can be fully utilized by the full Cognos server if upgraded later.
- Cognos Insight can be deployed via the server and individual Insight dashboards can be stored on the server. Insight may even be included as part of the particular licenses purchased.
- Initial setup isn't as simple as running the installer and turning it on. Adjustments to the server setup may be necessary before it is up and running.
- Browser support can be touchy. Compatibility is best with Internet Explorer, but certain browser setting changes can cause issues. Other browsers' compatibility can be questionable due to their significantly more regular updates.
- The technology that allows active reports to be packaged into .mht files is a proprietary Microsoft format, so other browsers cannot natively open them. There are 3rd party extensions for firefox and chrome.
- Standard reports are rather flat and bland to look at to keep them efficient and clear. It makes it hard to really "Wow" someone when presenting it compared to other products.
- Due to Active Reports packaging all of the data in the file and prerendering charts, file size can get quite large (easily several megabytes) and the initial load time can be quite long when opening it. It is best used for basic overviews and other times when some "flash" is needed, but not a large amount of data.
- Configuring the interoperability with TM1 and SPSS is a little more on the technical side than most other tasks.
- You could call the development process "Front heavy" meaning most of the development will be modeling. This means that it will take longer to end up with visualized data than other tools.
- It works best with actual databases, and not so well with csv or other file formats. Using an ODBC or JDBC driver can be used to treat files like databases, but native support is rather limited.
- The desktop tools such as Framework Manager that are part of the suite are all built for 32-bit windows only, despite the availability of 64-bit and other operating systems for the actual server.
- Using external ODBC drivers can be done with 32-bit drivers only.
- Because of the way Cognos installs on a system, trying to keep a sandbox environment on a developer's personal machine isn't feasible.
- Dynamic Cubes are very hardware intensive, so when dealing with large data sets (millions of rows and up) the amount of memory and resources that need to be dedicated to a single cube to keep the query time within seconds can get high (possibly hundreds of GB of memory).
Of course, smaller companies that don't have heavy reporting needs will probably find the suite to be beyond their current needs, so something more lightweight like Cognos Express might be a better choice, or even the stand-alone Cognos Insight if their needs don't currently go beyond a few users manipulating their spreadsheets.
Cognos - The "Ace in the Sleeve" BI tool
- I very rarely find something it cannot do. There is always a way to get around a problem you are facing, it may just take some critical thinking to get there.
- Framework manager is excellent. I prefer it over Tableau extracts.
- The exporting options has been used a lot by my team. The business users we deal with are still very much in favor of Excel and this allows the data to be in a familiar format should they chose to do that.
- Cognos is not the prettiest BI tool. It is very old-school in my opinion. This is not bad for all people, but I think the next generation of users will want something "prettier"
- Very steep learning curve, but that comes along with the complexity of the tool
- When developing a report, the way everything (tools, pages, etc) are laid out is confusing. It took me months to get it down. Again, this tool is very complex and good at what it does, so that it to be expected.
- The Report and Query Studio tools are nice for sophisticated power users. This allows power users to query and report on data which has already been modeled.
- The architecture of the application can be tiered nicely for performance. This allows us to scale the application to support our growing user base.
- Mobile features are more mature than other comparable products
- Licensing for Cognos is difficult to understand. It is based upon a proprietary 'PVU' or Processor Value Unit calculation which has been created by IBM. This effectively licenses each server by the number of processing cores.
- The software licensing is expensive.
- The product requires very technical staff to maintain and support. This adds greatly to the TCO of IBM Cognos that many overlook.
- Even with version 10.2.1 - browser compatibility is an issue for Report and Query Studio users. For example, they still don't work in Google Chrome. This causes a lot of confusion.