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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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Recent Reviews

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 …
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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

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Pricing

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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
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Product Demos

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.

7.9
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

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

8.3
Avg 8.4

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

Access Control and Security

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

8.3
Avg 8.6

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

7.3
Avg 8.0

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
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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

Additional Features

  • Supported: AI Forecasting

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 Publish to PDF highest, with a score of 8.7.

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

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Reviews and Ratings

(579)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 126)
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Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Data Visualization: Plenty of options exist for multiple use cases, and dashboards are easy to implement and customize.
  • Integration with IBM Watson: makes it easy to use Watson AI features (NLP etc.) on your data.
  • Its advanced analytics functionalities with powerful pattern detection/prediction models.
  • Steep learning curve for beginners. It takes time to understand what can be done and how.
  • The user interface feels old and not easy to use, especially compared to recent solutions.
  • Limited options for user identification (LDAP only).
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • The user-friendly dashboards lets us create custom dashboards super quickly. It's great at visualizing data in a way that's easy to grasp, which means we can spot trends at a glance without getting lost in the numbers.
  • AI-powered Insights are a lifesaver. It automatically highlights patterns and insights we might miss, making our analysis more thorough without extra effort on our part.
  • Data integration is a breeze. Merging data from various sources is very simple to implement. Whether it's customer feedback or sales figures, Cognos handles it seamlessly, giving us a complete view without the headache of manual merging.
  • We love the report automation. Generating reports is no longer a time-consuming task. We set up what we need once, and Cognos does the rest, automating our weekly or monthly reports and saving us a ton of time.
  • The learning curve can be a bit of a challenge. Getting the hang of Cognos Analytics was a bit of a challenge at first. It's packed with features, which is great, but it can be overwhelming. A simplified introductory mode for new users would be a huge help.
  • The mobile experience could be a lot better. Accessing reports on the go is a bit clunky. The mobile interface could definitely use some polishing to make it as smooth and intuitive as the desktop experience.
  • Performance with large datasets sometimes lages. When we're working with really big data sets, things can slow down a bit. Improving the efficiency and speed for these situations would make our data analysis tasks even smoother.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Scheduled report generational and email
  • Very good for customising reports and creating accurate reports
  • It can easily integrate with multiple ERP's
  • Pricing is a bit higher
  • You cannot share report to users who do not have a license
  • Very difficult to implement it for the first time without admin support
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • We use the tool for data modeling as it helps in predictive data analysis for complex data, which is very similar to real-life scenarios.
  • Options of customizing & scheduling reports as per our requirements basis.
  • Has mobile application which works seamless.
  • API integration is not upto the mark with very limited options.
  • Laptops get overheated when the tool is used from moderate to heavy use. Also, there is a lag in the tool times.
  • Licensing & Maintenance can go from cheap to expensive depending on the scope.
  • Lot of scope to improve the customer support & its not upto the industry standards.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • 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.
Hemant Chaturvedi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Handling enormous amounts of data for analytics development.
  • Highly responsive end to end solutions built leveraging the ever-reliable IBM cloud.
  • Efficient collaboration among team members and reduced dependency on isolated developers.
  • Could extend the integration capabilities for many third party platforms which are already being supported by its competitors for quite some time now.
  • Could be made a little more citizen developer friendly against its current approach of being more understandable by developers. One good example is Power BI which is highly usable even by non-developers who are proficient in using excel formulas, for a lot, if not all of the requirements.
  • Resource consumption needs to be optimized to handle loads even with lower specifications based platforms considering it has capability to run on browsers as well.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • 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
Thomas Baker, CFE, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Easy to use "out of the box"
  • Easily adaptive user interface
  • Automation solutions are very efficient
  • Uses a lot of the CPU of PC and can be only item running on computer sometimes
  • The error descriptions could be worded differently to help users find out what is exactly wrong with the report they are trying to write
  • Missing third party integration functionality that works succinctly
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • It can be connected to multiple data sources.
  • Easily integrates with any other tool.
  • Combination of data sources.
  • Favorable technical service, always attentive.
  • It is fully scalable.
  • After configured, learning is a bit difficult, although later, one takes it until one understands it.
  • The administration interface needs to be improved a bit.
  • Everything works without a hitch, from its implementation to its general use.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Full data reporting and analysis all the time.
  • Artificial Intelligence of great help for business performance.
  • Easily integrates with other tools.
  • You can count on this scalable platform.
  • Fast in data recovery.
  • It has a good price.
  • Quality technical team.
  • Many times the view of the videos on the web is not good, it needs to improve.
  • Graph more, for better understanding.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
  • 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.
  • integration with modern data stack tech like Fivetran, dbt and Snowflake could and should go much deeper
  • mapping and visualization capabilities could be improved.
  • cloud deployment could be more advanced.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • AI chatbot provides an excellent user experience for the researcher
  • Very good looking reports
  • Forecasting
  • Security
  • Kind of expensive and a lot of extras that require additional pay
  • Rather scary for the first time users, maybe you can improve the learning curve needed
  • Reports need to be easier to setup, maybe more starting templates
Rajeev Bagra | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Forecasting after eliminating random bias
  • AI chatbot can answer any query raised in simple English from the data, perform calculations.
  • Reports are visually appealing
  • Reports can be made more easier to create.
  • Speed of performing operations within dashboard can be increased as at times it is slow.
  • There is a steep learning curve at the beginning. Make it more easier.
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