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IBM Cognos Analytics

IBM Cognos Analytics

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.

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Learn from top reviewers

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Pricing

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On Demand - Standard

$10.00

Cloud
per month per user

On Demand - Standard

$10.60

On Premise
per month per user

On Demand - Premium

$42.40

On Premise
per month per user

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.ibm.com/products/cognos…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $10 per month per user
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Product Demos

How to get started with IBM Cognos Analytics

cognos-education.17f48735.public.multi-containers.ibm.com

IBM Cognos Analytics Product Tour

Walnut.io
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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

7.2
Avg 8.1

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

7.5
Avg 8.0

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

7.9
Avg 8.3

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.

7.4
Avg 8.0

Access Control and Security

Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.

7.6
Avg 8.5

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

7.2
Avg 7.8

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding

APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another

7.4
Avg 7.8
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Product Details

What is IBM Cognos Analytics?

Cognos Analytics is an AI-fueled business intelligence platform that supports the entire analytics cycle, from discovery to operationalization. Cognos Analytics gives users — whether data scientist, business analyst or non-specialist — more power to perform relevant analysis in a way that ties back to organizational objectives. It aims to shorten each user’s journey from simple to sophisticated analytics, allowing them to harness data to explore the unknown, identify new relationships, get a deeper understanding of outcomes and challenge the status quo. Users can visualize, analyze and share actionable insights about data with anyone in the organization.


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

IBM Cognos Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of a natural language query, used in IBM Cognos Analytics to get AI-powered insights from data.Screenshot of AI-generated insights and forecasts that can be added with just a click of a button.Screenshot of a dashboard that can be generated automatically using IBM Cognos Analytics by uploading or selecting data.Screenshot of an AI-generated dashboard from a spreadsheet that was just uploaded. This offers a great starting point for the creative process.Screenshot of where to import data to IBM Cognos Analytics from CSV files and spreadsheets. Users can connect to cloud or on-premises data sources, including SQL databases, Google BigQuery, Amazon, and Redshift.Screenshot of a sample operational dashboard of a coffee shop created using IBM Cognos Analytics.

IBM Cognos Analytics Video

IBM Cognos Analytics Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android
Supported CountriesGlobal
Supported LanguagesEnglish, French, German, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Simplified Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew, Urdu, Farsi

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

IBM Cognos Analytics starts at $10.

Tableau Public, Tableau Server, and Microsoft Power BI are common alternatives for IBM Cognos Analytics.

Reviewers rate Report Versioning highest, with a score of 8.6.

The most common users of IBM Cognos Analytics are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

(1-5 of 10)

Cognos - An Integral Component of Workbrain Solution

Rating: 8 out of 10
June 06, 2014
AG
Vetted Review
Verified User
IBM Cognos Analytics
9 years of experience
We are using IBM Cognos as the reporting tool for the Workbrain Time and Attendance solution at WB.
Cognos integrates with workbrain and serves as the reporting engine for the system.
It is currently used by the several departments within WB, but planned to be rolled out to all the departments.
  • It is fairly easy to create reports using Cognos.
  • It integrates well with other applications.
  • It maintains its own DB schema.
Cons
  • It could be hard to understand and navigate through for a novice. (not very intuitive)
  • It is sensitive to changes in the hosting environment (java change on the host may cause for the need to re-configure Cognos for example)
  • The error messages are not very descriptive or helpful. You might see errors such as: "The server did something wrong..." or "the client did something wrong"
In the case of WB. Cognos came as a bundle packaged together with the Workbrain product, therefore there wasn't much choice.

IBM Cognos Delivers Value for Small-Medium Sized Businesses

Rating: 7 out of 10
August 23, 2021
BS
Vetted Review
Verified User
IBM Cognos Analytics
4 years of experience
We use IBM Cognos Analytics across our company. We use to do ad hoc reporting and automated reporting on our core system.
  • Automates reporting
  • Enables precise reporting from database
  • Enables users to share reports easily
Cons
  • 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 works best when a user is very comfortable with SQL databases and queries. It doesn't require you to know how to code SQL but it is very helpful to know the concepts well. If you aren't familiar with SQL, Cognos is harder.

IBM Watson Analytics: A Rockstar of Data

Rating: 7 out of 10
March 28, 2018
Vetted Review
Verified User
IBM Cognos Analytics
1 year of experience
We use IBM Watson analytics to replace our data science roles – primarily within social media. I started using it as a recommendation from a client, to get better insight (they're shifting all their software over to IBM. I'm sorry I cannot elaborate further on that). This program is basically a smart data/visual analysis that helps its clients discover patterns within data they upload, for their research. In this case, with our clients, we use it to determine their traffic through their Twitter and Facebook marketing/advertising. It helps us discover what ads are the most responsive and what content resonates best with customers.
  • Implementation of the data is fairly easy, all it requires is registration and uploading data from a spreadsheet – it's little more than copy/pasting which is pretty manageable on time
  • It's affordable – it offers a $30 plan for its "Plus" services, and $80/month for its Professional services. With a small markup, this is profitable for both us and our clients
  • Their customer support has been great – they have live personal available by phone or chat during regular business hours, and their Customer Support forums are always available 24/7. They're always quick to address an issue.
Cons
  • The accuracy of the reporting from the program relies solely on the data the user sources. There can be errors in reporting due to...well, human error, which can kind of mess up your entire data sheet
  • When you're working with a program that is a cloud-based service, decentralized reporting can mislead organizations when you're not properly balanced with the traditional checks of a governed system – again, this is a human-error issue
  • IBM advertises this as a program that can work for any user, but unless you have experience working with data analytics, it can be difficult to determine where to start. I had to look up a few tutorials online before I was able to properly get my data rolling through
Despite its shortcomings, IBM Watson Analytics does its job well. It's paired for any size organization, big or small – but realistically, if you're going to be analyzing user-data on a broad scale, it probably makes sense to use this program if you're working with a big company. Otherwise Facebook Analytics could probably do the work for you, for a cheaper price. Our social media manager has been using it to track data for a client of ours, and they have been enjoying it so far. It's a good system to determine user traffic.

Cognos works mostly

Rating: 6 out of 10
January 27, 2016
AD
Vetted Review
Verified User
IBM Cognos Analytics
4 years of experience
IBM Cognos is being used for operations, business analytics, planning, business improvement, and budget forecasting to name a few.
  • Cognos scheduler works pretty well by sending out reports to groups of users successfully and reliably.
  • Cognos framework is pretty effective for modeling data for us.
  • Report Studio is fairly reliable and works most of the time.
Cons
  • There are missing DB2 functions in Cognos that would be useful to have but most of the time I can program around it.
  • Event studio could be better, it takes forever to load and crashes frequently.
  • Error reporting in Cognos is notoriously non descriptive and very useless. I don't even count on them for much of the troubleshooting I do.

IBM Cognos analytics 10.2 - Admin review.

Rating: 8 out of 10
April 20, 2021
IBM [Cognos] Analytics help us to create reports, analysis across various data [departments].
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
Cons
  • User based licensing.
  • IBM service restart taking more time.
  • Various error when deploying SSO
I have used various reporting and analytics tool like SSRS, SAP
[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].
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