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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 (104)
    8.1
    81%
  • Drill-down analysis (103)
    8.1
    81%
  • Report Delivery Scheduling (102)
    8.0
    80%
  • Customizable dashboards (101)
    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

(580)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 128)
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Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our first and most basic scenario was to automatize the creation and publication/sharing of business reports that used to be created manually by employees throughout our organization. Using Cognos for that first use case worked well. The advanced analytics functionalities we used on the aggregated data were also as expected. However, the user interface is not always intuitive, and there is a steep learning curve, so I would recommend Cognos only to large organizations where there is a need for the most advanced functionalities (AI analysis/prediction).
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cognos is fantastic for businesses like ours that need to dive deep into customer data to evaluate marketing strategies. It's especially good when you're dealing with multiple data sources and need to bring everything together in a coherent, visual format for analysis and decision-making. Also, if your team values data-driven insights to guide your strategies, Cognos Analytics is a powerful ally. Where it might be less appropriate is for small startups or teams with very basic data analysis needs. The complexity and cost could be overkill when simpler, less expensive solutions like Power Bi, or Tableau would do. Additionally, if quick, on-the-fly mobile access to data is critical for your team, you might find the mobile experience a bit lacking.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The IBM Cognos Analytics is well suited in places where is there is a lot of data to be processed, using this tool all the data can be split it to multiple reports. Our BA team was complaining about raw data being given to them and the time it was taking time to extract this data however with IBM Cognos Analytics tool this was done within no time , which actually helped the team to work on the data
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Well suited: 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. Less Appropriate: 1. API integration with minimal options is not up to the mark. Laptops get overheated when using the tool, from moderate to heavy use. 2. Also, there is a lag in the tool times. 3. There is a lot of scope to improve customer support & it's not up to industry standards. 4. Licensing & Maintenance can go from cheap to expensive depending on the scope.
Shelby Kolb | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IBM Cognos Analytics is great for deep-level stakeholder Business Intelligence and performance, but not as appropriate for quick, ad-hoc analysis and dashboarding for junior level, non-technical stakeholders and partners in my opinion. We have not been able to sync the data with newer data streams, such as Digital Communications, marketing, etc.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Well Suited Scenarios:
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.

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IBM Cognos Analytics is great for data integration, but for organizations with very complex data transformation needs, its capabilities may be lacking. In these cases, you may need other data preparation tools to preprocess your data prior to analysis.
Dean Jones | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IBM's developer network provides lots of resources for learning this tool and has a supportive community. It's important to have good people to support, implement and maintain the system. IBM Cognos has come a long way and have done a lot of good features with dashboarding, still some way to go though.
Hemant Chaturvedi | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Well suited for:
Huge workloads handling in a highly analytics process demanding job.
Highly responsive and nearly live reporting is needed for more active analytics modelling.
Need evergreen automation capabilities on top of analytical solutions.

Less suited for:
Low specifications based infrastructure. It consumes high specs resources for running.
For a citizen development/non-development business team designers.
March 20, 2024

Best Business AI Tool

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is very well suited for us when we have a lot of data which we need to present into a meaningful information. It also helps junior resources in the company to also play an important role in data analytics - plain English commands help in that.
I guess it would be less appropriate for smaller organisations with less quantum of data.
March 20, 2024

IBM Cognos Analytics

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IBM Cognos Analytics gives users formatted and interactive dashboards with custom visualizations for users to make anywhere, anytime from any device. A great way to understand our business landscape and to gain business intelligence about our clients and partners. Data driven decisions help us make better informed business decisions for customers and our business year round.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for various purposes such as its great for creating reports as it keeps factoring all the key indicators. its data analytics capabilities are also unmatched we run many ads and it provides us deep insights about that like which ad is performing the best. Its also great for predictive analysis as well.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IBM Cognos Analytics is pretty well suited to work on bulky data set, from which a specific set of information needs to be extracted.
Works really well for us for assessing and analysing audience engagement on various social platforms like Instagram, YouTube, X, etc. and helps us guide our clients on efficient marketing strategy.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IBM Cognos Analytics is well suited for use cases where you have to present reporting and tell story using data to a non-technical audience. The charting features are good and helps combine and analyze various datasets easily.

It's less suited for use by Machine Learning engineers/developers to probe data and derive statistical insights from datasets.
Thomas Baker, CFE, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
IBM Cognos Analytics is very well suited for a large company that has users who are well versed in business intelligence and know how to create reports and monitor their necessary data to create a visually appetizing summary. This may be less appropriate for a smaller company that does not need the necessary computing power to bring together mass amount of data to report results/analyze trends and run analytics.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Being a stable and robust tool, it has been very useful for managing all the data in report and content management, allowing you to be connected from any device or data source or on the web. We use it in all the departments of the organization, offering us excellent functions that help us to have good visualizations automatically, therefore, quickly, of the data to keep everything in order. We recommend it mainly for large companies that have data silos. IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson will keep each piece of data unified by the department.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Despite some drawbacks, such as visualizations, IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson has been quite beneficial for the company; the data reports are constantly analyzed in a concise and precise manner, extracting the most specific ones for better control. Everything is simpler since its implementation since everything is systematized and, therefore, processes are accelerated. Something extremely important is productivity is higher, maintaining a good work environment and with customers.
Nick Waters | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
IBM Cognos Analytics is well suited for organisations that need both mode 1 and mode 2 analytics. It provides enterprise reporting capability combined with interactive dashboarding capabilities for self service analysis of data. It supports both on premise and cloud based deployments and connects well to other IBM solutions for example IBM Planning Analytics
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Where governed enterprise reporting is important, where IT skills are mature and capable, where well designed, highly formatted and advanced reports are important, where data modelling skills are well developed, where data analysts and data engineers work well together.
September 12, 2023

Congrats on Cognos

Ah Hassan Rayon Hussain Mohammed | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Reporting whose demands are not too high but simple tabulated format which can be used for over several years. Also adhoc reporting using Query Studio is better in making short time reports. Other options where it lacks is Dashboarding where I would prefer Tableau or PowerBI
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Well suited for complex businesses with a lot of data: financial sector, healthcare, etc. Can generate comprehensive reports and forecasts.

Less apropiate in a scenario where you want to use it for a small startup that lacks a significant amount of data to analyse.
Rajeev Bagra | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Without writing a single piece of code, IBM Cognos Analytics can answer queries, generate reports, and forecast. The code source of the output can be tracked. Even for a freelancer/one-person company, IBM Cognos Analytics can be a great investment with their monthly subscription of 10$ or so. This is despite the fact that IBM Cognos Analytics is an enterprise software meant for large teams.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
For users who are not tech savy, having reporting emailed to them is a nice touch. However these same users need a better/less complicated way to design their own adhoc reports (ie, Query Studio). The new Reporting interface is too complex for casual users.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Comparing the "Big 3", Cognos has the bases covered. No other solution provides *all* of the benefits. User adoption/training is key, once users can build or even just modify reports and dashboards, merging their own datasets to governed corporate data, and setting subscriptions (via email) they are thrilled. Implementing Cognos has satisfied 99% of requests/complaints from our customers regarding access to their data!
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