IBM Cognos Analytics Reviews & Ratings 2024

Q: What are IBM Cognos Analytics's top competitors?

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

Starting at $10 per month per user

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.

Recent Reviews

IBM Cognos Analytics, in my opinion, legacy leader modern laggard

6 out of 10

March 29, 2024

Incentivized

Primarily used for Dashboard and Report development with some level of self service capabilities.

Good BI tool for advanced analytics.

7 out of 10

March 29, 2024

Incentivized

We use IBM Cognos Analytics is a business intelligence and analytics platform to gather and aggregate data from multiple parts of our …

It's like a Swiss Army knife for our data

9 out of 10

March 25, 2024

Incentivized

At our marketing agency, we primarily use IBM Cognos Analytics to dive deep into customer and non-customer data for a major financial bank …

IBM Cognos Analytics Review

8 out of 10

March 25, 2024

Incentivized

I work in an industry which is completely data driven, using IBM Cognos Analytics we can easily schedule reports that could be sent out to …

Great Data Visual tool that's let down by lack of integrations & customer support.

7 out of 10

March 23, 2024

Incentivized

We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very much in line with real-life …

IBM Cognos for Automation, Business Performance Insights, and Advanced Learning

4 out of 10

March 22, 2024

Incentivized

This is used by some of the teams for modeling, predictive analysis using historical data, and deep insights on overall Business …

Unlocking Business Insights with IBM Cognos Analytics

9 out of 10

March 22, 2024

Incentivized

It is business intelligence platform which enables organizations to make insights from their data and also provides informed decisions. …

IBM Cognos Analytics: The best blend of PowerBI, Tableau & Qlik

9 out of 10

March 20, 2024

Incentivized

We use IBM Cognos Analytics suite for developing Analytics solutions and consuming visualization reports and dashboards to get incredible …

Best Business AI Tool

9 out of 10

March 20, 2024

Incentivized

We use IBM Cognos Analytics extensively in our data research. Our research is primarily based on the data input of demographics of our …

IBM Cognos Analytics

8 out of 10

March 20, 2024

Incentivized

This technology is a great way for our business to see the scope of the work we are doing in one large dashboard. The data driven insights …

Great for data analysis

9 out of 10

March 20, 2024

Incentivized

We mostly use it for data analytics and business intelligence. With the data provided IBM Cognos Analytics provide comprehensive reports …

Best translation of AI into Business Analytics

8 out of 10

March 20, 2024

Incentivized

Being in the video production industry, we have a lot of bulky data relating to audience engagement of a video on a particular digital …

Powerful and reliable BI tool

6 out of 10

March 20, 2024

Incentivized

We use IBM Cognos Analytics as our primary Business Intelligence tool for our risk and business reporting needs. We use it to produce …

IBM Cognos Analytics Review

7 out of 10

February 13, 2024

Incentivized

IBM Cognos Analytics is used in the organization for reporting and analytics trends that come from the financial aspects of the company. …

Data unification capacity, great help to the end user in the creation of the final report.

10 out of 10

December 17, 2023

Incentivized

Throughout the organization, we fully use this tool for the control of administration automation, mainly reports and data models, which …

Read all reviews

How IBM Cognos Analytics Differs From Its Competitors

Self-Service

While there are claims for the AI integration and other aspects, the implementation of these are not easy and I have seen few success stories of the same. Data cleansing in a reporting tool is rather not recommended and should be done at data source or in data quality tools.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

Security and access control based on department, role and user types is one of the key requirements for me. This is something IBM Cognos Analytics does quite well and easyly integrates with windows AD.

Incentivized

Self-Service

When used properly, the AI features do provide productivity gains. However, they won't do all the work for you. They alleviate some of the most tedious tasks and help speed things up overall.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

Those functionalities are must-haves in any large organization, where you can not allow everybody to access every data set. However, I wish there were more options for user authentication.

Incentivized

Self-Service

Cognos' self-service capabilities have been a game-changer for our team. Before, data analysis felt like you needed a degree in wizardry. Now, with AI-assisted data prep and the AI Assistant, it's like having a data expert by your side, translating our plain English questions into deep insights …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

For us, working with a major financial brand, data security isn't just important—it's everything. Cognos Analytics' security controls are a big deal for us. They let us manage who sees what, ensuring only the right eyes are on sensitive data. This is crucial in a big agency like ours, where …

Incentivized

Self-Service

We have not used the AI assisted data preparation as the amount of the data that we collect is on a larger scale and we are in the very beginning of implementing AI on a broder scope in our organization

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

We are very much concerned about our data as we are a global organisation.
The data we collect is to make sure we make earth a better place to live hence we go a extra mile to make sure the data is secured and only the authorised persons have access the the data.

Incentivized

Self-Service

1. We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very much in line with real-life scenarios. 2. Options of customizing & scheduling reports as per our requirements basis. 3. With limited options, API integration is not up to the mark.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

1. We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very much in line with real-life scenarios. 2. Options of customizing & scheduling reports as per our requirements basis. 3. Has a mobile application that works seamlessly. 4. Laptops gets …

Incentivized

Self-Service

These features have streamlined some manual work and further advanced automation, but validation and further accuracy-checking is still needed as we gain confidence in the platform and want to ensure confidence.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

This is very important to us. We appreciate the controls accessible in IBM Cognos, as with any platform we seek out. This allows access to the data and investigating from team members at any and every level.

Incentivized

Self-Service

AI assisted data cleansing and connecting data have helped in the process of preparing and transforming data for analysis. Automated dashboard creation supports users to quickly generate interactive dashboard without the need of technical support. Self service feature in cognos analytics helped …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

It helps in defining and imposing security policies for different levels, be it groups or individual levels. It implements data governance controls which helps in data quality management and also helps in improving accuracy, and consistency of data. When user know their data is secured and their …

Incentivized

Self-Service

We are getting benefited continuously with the advanced Automation and AI capabilities on IBM Cognos Analytics which enable us to focus more on delivering the strategic business solutions rather than repetitive development tasks like data extraction, modelling (unless specific modelling is needed …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

Data security is a critical deal maker or deal breaker for us and IBM Cognos Analytics live to fullest of the expectations in this regard.
It offers tremendously helpful capabilities for row level and role level security on top of already powerful single sign on and multi factor authentication …

Incentivized

Self-Service

I feel the self-service capabilities are the best part about this tool. Big data usually comes with challenges of cleaning and streamlining the data, which is done easily and mostly automatically by IBM Cognos Analytics. Also, plain English commands make the tool extremely user friendly and very …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

The level-wise controls and access management work smoothly. We have a big team using this software, and everyone's access and role rights are efficiently and easily managed through the tool.

Incentivized

Self-Service

These tools have been incredibly impactful in driving our business activities and spending less time on tedious reports and organization/business decisions.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

I feel much more confident about the quality of the data I'm using since there are numerous AI and data mining tools involved in this process that make data organization and optimization easier. These tools are incredibly important to maintaining data and making informed business decisions for …

Incentivized

Self-Service

Its advanced AI capabilities help us immensely in data analysis as its very fast in analyzing large amounts of data in lower time frame. and as its running with the help of ai it means we can deploy our resources somewhere else.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

By data governance IBM Cognos Analytics ensures our data remains safe. It only allow authorized individuals with access of confidential data. with its accurate data analytics capabilities we are ensured that our data received from it is consistent and accurate. and because of that we are really …

Incentivized

Self-Service

We regularly use plain English commands to generate a lot of data report, to categorise those reports and to derive business strategies through it.<br>The self-service capabilities also make the learning curve much smoother.<br>The best feature is its chart creation, which can create really …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

We are a team of about 12 people who use this tool on a regular basis - ranging from management to junior data analyst. Its individual-level security controls help us assign specific roles and access to each user.

Incentivized

Self-Service

They've helped our middle office and back office non technical users to be able to probe data and come up with informed analysis on past trades. This has dramatically reduced the number of support requests for ad-hoc reporting raised with our technical teams. The reporting tool has helped …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

In a bank, these controls are critical as we need row and column level data protection. In addition, we need to prove to compliance on a regular basis that our controls are working correctly and this tool helps us provide the data in accordance with user permissions.

Incentivized

Self-Service

These self-service capabilities have enhanced the company's activities by allowing the creators and users of the information the freedom to take an idea they have and run with it. They can use the AI Assistant to take their ideas and create a visualization that helps get their point across and …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

By allowing the enhanced security controls the company has been able to make sure that all relevant data is limited to the users that need it most and it is locked down appropriately. This gives Management peace of mind that the right people are looking at the right data and the risk of the …

Incentivized

Self-Service

This is always what characterizes this software; it is possible to link tools that help to work with different data sources and AI, and it is also possible to visualize the data in a personalized control panel with a direct or indirect classification to all the obtaining system Automated data …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

There are more than ten groups with central administrative permissions that are working with this software only in my department; in other areas, different permissions have also been established for each job according to each data source; this significantly helps the individual performance of each …

Incentivized

Self-Service

If it is possible for all users to clearly understand the generated reports, the information panels are easy even for non-technical staff; it is not necessary to ask for help to export information to components or modules that are required, and it is also easy to change the location and report …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

Documents and reports are shared in all departments only with Latin permissions for password management and encryption when required; there is a person in charge in each department who has the authorization; in the same way, this product has additional security features with advanced verification. …

Incentivized

Self-Service

IBM Cognos Analytics' data modules allow for basic data prep tasks and continue to evolve. They provide a good web-based environment to manage metadata and build out calculations and filters, which help improve self-service analytics for end users. The AI assistant is a nice enhancement in recent …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

Data governance and controls are vital when rolling out an enterprise reporting, dashboarding, and analytics platform. IBM Cognos Analytics has always provided good and effective controls in this respect, which continue to be supported in newer releases. Security control also remains a strong …

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

This does increase throughput so that we can deploy content to a wider audience utilizing security to make sure people see only what they are supposed to see. The overall model is flexible and powerful so we can deliver data securely no matter the security need.

Incentivized

Self-Service

Yes it did and if the code was simplified also with integration of multiple UI then it would be a great product that users can use in their businesses

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

In enables better data governance structure by having regulated access to reports and dashboards of who can access the data with better row level security enabled. Quality of data is highly dependent on how we get the data and make relationships with different tables and databases so it is …

Incentivized

Self-Service

Leveraging AI to analyse data and generate interactive dashboards is an incredible powerful and time saving feature.
The AI assistant natural language processing is also a great tool to fill the knowledge gap that is normal for clients using these kind of tools.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

The security controls are a must of using this tool. Beyond important :-) Without security it would not work.
Proper content management and data quality features improved the confidence in the quality of the data.

Incentivized

Self-Service

Such self service features are the reason we stick with Cognos Analytics. There is an active community and support is excellent.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

With Cognos Analytics user data and master copy are nicely differentiated. So a user can come out with different scenarios on his own workspace without modifying the master copy.

Incentivized

Self-Service

We just migrated to CA this year so we are still struggling with switching our model to self service.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

Extremely! As we are a healthcare insurance company, we are driven by mandates from the government and have strict policies to follow. CA allows permissions to be set at most of the levels we require.

Incentivized

Self-Service

We provide training on these exact capabilities and offer custom report/dasboard builds on an SOW basis. Along with our standard reports and dashboards this has allowed us to satisfy all of our customer needs.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

Very important. All users are assigned roles and "scope". This scope is enforced in models, allowing us to provide single packages which satisfy 1,000s of needs. Power BI and Tableau can't do that!

Incentivized

Self-Service

We are planning to introduce business user self-service for future release.

Incentivized

Data Security and Quality

IBM Cognos allows governors at system level, model/package level and report level security controls, but it is lacking control by tenants. e.g. many system level governors like high/low affinity processes or max processes cannot have different settings per tenant.

Incentivized

Self-Service

These capabilities were designed to empower business users with the ability to access and analyze data without heavy reliance on IT or technical expertise.

Data Security and Quality

It is essential, and we no need to physically share data with developers and users. All my data is secured and governed.

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

Popular Features

View all 30 features

Formatting capabilities (102)
8.1
81%
Drill-down analysis (101)
8.1
81%
Report Delivery Scheduling (100)
8.0
80%
Customizable dashboards (99)
7.8
78%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons

Role based access controls
Introducing new charts and visuals

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Banking Company, 5001-10,000 employees

Integration with IBM Watson: makes it easy to use Watson AI features (NLP etc.) on your data.
The user interface feels old and not easy to use, especially compared to recent solutions.

Verified User

Program Manager in Product Management

Information Technology & Services Company, 5001-10,000 employees

Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing

On Demand - Standard

$10.00

Cloud

per month per user

On Demand - Premium

$40.00

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

Return to navigation

Product Demos

IBM Cognos Analytics Product Tour

Walnut.io

Return to navigation

Features

BI Standard Reporting

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

7.9

Avg 8.2

Ad-hoc Reporting

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

8.1

Avg 8.1

8.1
Drill-down analysis
(101) Ratings
Drill down analysis is the ability to get to a further level of detail by going deeper into the hierarchy.
8.1
Formatting capabilities
(102) Ratings
Ability to format output e.g. conditional formatting, lines, headers, footers.
7.8
Integration with R or other statistical packages
(71) Ratings
Integration with the open-source R predictive modeling environment.
8.4
Report sharing and collaboration
(99) 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.

8.3

Avg 8.4

8.3
Publish to Web
(27) Ratings
8.7
Publish to PDF
(97) Ratings
8.6
Report Versioning
(26) Ratings
Report versioning is the assignment of version numbers to each version of a report to help in tracking.
8
Report Delivery Scheduling
(100) Ratings
Report Delivery Schedule is the ability to have reports delivered to a destination at a specific data and time.
8.1
Delivery 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.

8.1

Avg 8.1

8
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
(88) Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats are canned visualization types that can be selected to visualize different kinds of data.
8.2
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
(85) Ratings
Location analytics is the visualization of geographical or spatial data.
8.1
Predictive Analytics
(81) Ratings
Predictive Analytics is the ability to build forecasting models based on existing data sets.
8
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining
(20) 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.

8.3

Avg 8.6

8.4
Multi-User Support (named login)
(95) Ratings
Named model access means that users have access based on name and password.
8.3
Role-Based Security Model
(94) Ratings
Role-based access means that access to data is determined by job or position in the corporation.
8.2
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
(94) Ratings
Multiple access permission levels means that different levels of users have different rights.
8.4
Report-Level Access Control
(23) Ratings
Report-level access control means that the type of report determines who has access to it.
8.3
Single Sign-On (SSO)
(76) Ratings
Allows users to use one set of login credentials to access multiple applications

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

7.3

Avg 7.9

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding

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

7.5

Avg 7.9

7.3
REST API
(57) Ratings
REST is an architecture style for designing networked applications
7.5
Javascript API
(56) Ratings
A Javascript API is a type of API
8.3
iFrames
(9) Ratings
An iFrame is an HTML document embedded inside another HTML document on a website
6.9
Java API
(11) Ratings
A Java application programming interface (API) is a list of all classes that are part of the Java development kit (JDK)
7.1
Themeable User Interface (UI)
(10) Ratings
A themeable user interface means that a specific visual them can be applied to it
7.8
Customizable Platform (Open Source)
(7) Ratings
A customizable, open source API Gateway is a fast and scalable type of API

Return to navigation

Product Details

About
Integrations
Competitors
Tech Details
FAQs

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.

https://ibm.biz/Cognos_Analytics_product_page

IBM Cognos Analytics Features

Show Unsupported 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

IBM Cognos Analytics starts at $10.

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

Reviewers rate Publish to PDF highest, with a score of 8.7.

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

Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives

Compare with

Reviews and Ratings

(579)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 39)

Sort By *

Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why

April 22, 2020

IBM Cognos - BI system of choice

Ashwin Marwah

Senior Director, Business Intelligence

Sinclair Broadcast Group (Entertainment, 10,001+ employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

It's currently being used as a system of choice for my companies all BI reporting needs.

February 14, 2020

IBM Cognos Analytics: The reporting platform of choice, with growing potential

Verified User

Manager in Sales

Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Reseller Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Report bursting has always been good with IBM Cognos and Cloud is no exception, whether it's types of formats, scheduling, security, or distribution. It's especially useful when reports are being bursted to a significant number of users, like for annual reports, sales dashboards, or commissions statements. This, coupled with easy licensing options, keeps the costs in check.

February 05, 2020

IBM Cognos Report Studio works great for distributing data

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Hospital & Health Care Company, 10,001+ employees

Score 6 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

It's possible for our organization to share data across teams, but due to being a healthcare organization we have to make sure it goes to the appropriate individuals. We built a custom website program that allows business owners of different data sources throughout the company determine which members should be in what groups so that reports go to the appropriate individuals. With this custom web app and IBM Cognos, it is fantastic to share data across the organization in PDF, Excel, or HTML formats. I just wish they did a better job at managing groups or updating their Cognos SDK, without charging additional fees for custom development.

January 21, 2020

Give me a 60th of an hour and I’ll give you sales!!

Byron Conner

Assistant General Manager

Bass Pro Shops (Retail, 10,001+ employees)

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Cognos allows for screen capture as well as exporting.

January 14, 2020

Great product!

Verified User

Professional in Finance and Accounting

Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Burst emails are lacking, but they can be done. They require some IT support, I would like to see the functional user be able to do more of the burst emails themselves. Also, sometimes the burst emails can be quirky and duplicate text. When this happens, you have to get IT involved because of the complexity.

December 04, 2019

IBM Cognos Review

Verified User

Director in Information Technology

Hospitality Company, 10,001+ employees

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

This was superior in every facet of the application. Cross-pollinating application with data sources, ability to manage multiple role-based access with SSO and reporting for structure levels is key to its success. This product truly delivered.

November 16, 2019

Collaborative But Complicated

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 5001-10,000 employees

Score 7 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

The access control capabilities work well, and it's easy to share data across teams (commonly accessible reports). Report formatting is more complicated than it needs to be.

September 06, 2019

IBM Cognos Analytics Review

John Nguyen

DataBase Analyst

ATG (Aviation & Aerospace, 11-50 employees)

Score 7 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

I like it. I feel that it is quick and simple.

May 10, 2019

Cognos today review

Ray Hirte

IT Project Management Consultant

Hennepin County (Government Administration, 5001-10,000 employees)

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

I am not as versed with the sharing of collaborative aspects of Cognos. The dashboards make a nice high level addition and our executives like the look and feel.

February 25, 2019

Cognos is a great enterprise tool

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Airlines/Aviation Company, 10,001+ employees

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

The reasons for my rating for the access control capabilities include ease of sharing data across teams, report distribution and formatting and security are that in my opinion it is better than the rest and can hold its own when stacked up against other BI products. For enterprise use, it is a great tool that works well.

January 17, 2019

IBM Cognos is a powerful tool to have in your organization

Nabeel Chohan

Finance Manager, Project Accounting Group

Salient CRGT (Information Technology and Services, 1001-5000 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Cognos does a great job in access control where access can be limited based on various factors and can be used to perform specific functions. One of the great things about Cognos is the ability to share and distribute reports, this is done with ease in Cognos where the user has an option of sharing reports through public or private folders.

December 11, 2018

Cognos too Powerful?

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Airlines/Aviation Company, 10,001+ employees

Score 5 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Business users can create their own reports using query studio and share those results with others either via PDF or scheduling alerts.

December 11, 2018

Cognos is good for a large sized healthcare organization, but it may be a conservative choice

Verified User

Analyst in Research & Development

Hospital & Health Care Company, 10,001+ employees

Score 7 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

We integrated Cognos with out user management component: LDAP. Using user credentials and roles in the LDAP, we configured Cognos user's read privilege of reports. For example, doctors, nurses, nursing practitioners, pharmacists may have different roles, and also have different views depending on their units and facilities. Overall Cognos is a good report development and management tool for large-sized company with strict regulation and organization structure such as healthcare institutes. The tool provides necessary functions with stable performance, supported by IBM's business experience and expertise. If you're a small or mid sized company and need more flexible framework, Cognos may not be the best option.

September 27, 2018

Cognos Review

Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Retail Company, 51-200 employees

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Typified users, with defined permissions, that define the level of security.

April 06, 2018

Cognos of the Titan IBM for superb users

Miguel Angel Merino Vega

Analista de Sistemas

Consultor independiente de software (Computer Software, 1-10 employees)

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

It has a good sharing strategy for most reports and dashboards. Both the exports documents as the online view are easy to format and control. No need to pass through a large learning curve. That's good about Cognos: its simplicity for basic users.

April 02, 2018

Solid reporting tool with some missing capabilities

Gonzalo Angeleri

Regional Product & Solution Architect Manager

GRUPO DATCO (Information Technology and Services, 501-1000 employees)

Score 7 out of 10

Vetted Review

Reseller Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Cognos has some good report delivery capabilities that can be triggered by time or by the event.

March 28, 2018

Best BI Tool for Enterprises

Verified User

Analyst in Marketing

Retail Company, 51-200 employees

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

IBM Cognos's ability to control what a user can access and do gives implementation flexibility. For example, with IBM Cognos I can have multiple LDAP domains to secure the analytics solution that allow subsidiaries of a large corporation to access the same report but have the user's data and role level access determine what the report shows as well as how the report looks.

February 28, 2018

Powerful Data Sharing and Automation Tool

Monika Ganeva

Sr Manager, HRIS and Analytics

SoulCycle Inc. (Health, Wellness and Fitness, 1001-5000 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Extremely to easy to customize and share reports, set a reporting schedule and push out data to any user with no need for them to interact with the tool at all.

December 07, 2017

Cognos falling behind

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 10,001+ employees

Score 3 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

We have folders that we can use from each other's file, so we don't need to rebuild queries. Access control seems to work fine since this mainly controlled by the central IT. Sharing data still remain at the level of export excel to user, no visualization that can directly share upon to others. Report distribution and formatting is pretty old school, nothing exciting, not much to expect.

December 07, 2017

IBM Cognos is a Powerful BI Tool

Gos Yao

Professional Service Consultant

NETSCOUT (Computer Networking, 1001-5000 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

This works very well - you can establish the schedule to deliver the reports at your disposal to anyone with any visibility, via any format (excel/PDF/HTML etc).

April 14, 2017

Cognos rocks!!

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Banking Company, 10,001+ employees

Score 6 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Easily sharable with internal team and end users

February 01, 2017

Experienced Cognos User's Review

Olena Sherbinin

Data Architect

University of Pittsburgh - School of Information Sciences (Higher Education, 51-200 employees)

Score 10 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Collaboration and Sharing

It's easy to share within university users.

May 16, 2016

IBM Cognos Review by the Average Joe

Verified User

Director in Information Technology

Hospital & Health Care Company, 11-50 employees

Score 7 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Cognos makes it easy to share data across several department teams and makes report distribution easier.

May 02, 2016

IBM Cognos - Real BI integrated platform

Benoit COLAS

Manager, Business Intelligence, CRM & Collaboration

STEF (Logistics and Supply Chain, 10,001+ employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

With IBM Cognos platform, users can create their own analysis and query and share them with other users. Security applies on any objects in the same way reports published by administrators and query/analysis are created by users.

April 12, 2016

Great Reporting with Cognos BI

Lori Lambert

Business Systems Manager

Biola University (Higher Education, 1001-5000 employees)

Score 9 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Collaboration and Sharing

Security classes are created and users are assigned to the security classes based on their roles. Access is also limited based on the type of role (author vs. consumer). Sharing across teams can be easily accomplished by setting up the required security classes and placing reports in designated folders. Reports can be scheduled and delivered in a variety of formats via email when necessary.

Return to navigation

On Demand - Standard

$10.00

On Demand - Premium

$40.00

IBM Cognos Analytics Product Tour

IBM Planning Analytics

Microsoft Power BI

Amazon QuickSight

IBM Cognos Dashboard Embedded

SAP Analytics Cloud

Anaplan

Tableau Desktop

Varicent

Microsoft Azure

Snowflake