IBM Cognos is a Great Tool with the Appropriate User Privileges
February 25, 2016

IBM Cognos is a Great Tool with the Appropriate User Privileges

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Query Studio
  • Report Studio

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cognos

IBM Cognos is used by departments as a reporting query tool for reporting on institution data. Data being analyzed is from the Student Information System (PeopleSoft) where we extrapolate data on students' enrollments, enrollment caps, average enrollments, demographic data (race, age, geographic, level of education, etc.) . It flags high or under performing course offerings and academic departments (as a whole).

Pros

  • IBM Cognos allows the administration to make certain data available based on individual rights, privileges, and exclude data that they should not be viewing.
  • IBM Cognos allows the institution to easily label high or under performing departments so that the marketing teams can promote programs with high demands.

Cons

  • IBM Cognos provides collections of required data, but graphs and table functionality should be improved. As this functionality isn't extremely helpful, data is exported to other programs do produce charts and tables as needed.
  • Functionality to flag inconsistencies with various query outputs. Within the user interface it would be helpful to see where databases need to be reviewed and/or updated to reflect consistency.
  • Include options, to users with limited customization privileges, to request output customizations or changes to database fields directly from the GUI.
IBM Cognos made it easy to request data that was needed. With PeopleSoft, our IT department needed to be involved/was required so that in-house programmers could design code and queries in order to be able to review the data. Excluding this extra step made productivity much higher and data more accessible.
Another party was responsible for the merging of data from another source (PeopleSoft). As I requested updates, it was a quick process to complete upon request.
Perhaps, due to the privileges I was granted in IBM Cognos, data was not easily shared with other members of my unit. This was Student Information System data on students enrollments, enrollment caps, average enrollments, demographic data, etc. This data needed to be exported and shared to other party members in order to collaborate on data findings.
IBM Cognos is suitable for any company or entity that needs data for marketing, sales, management or accounting purposes. In education, Cognos easily extrapolates data on students' enrollments, enrollment caps, average enrollments, and demographic data (race, age, geographic, level of education, etc.).

IBM Cognos Analytics Feature Ratings

BI Platform ()
Not Rated
Supported Data Sources ()
Not Rated
6.5
Customizable dashboards
7
Report Formatting Templates
6
8.0
Drill-down analysis
8
Formatting capabilities
8
Integration with R or other statistical packages
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
8
8.0
Publish to Web
Not Rated
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
7
Report Delivery Scheduling
7
6.0
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
6
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
Not Rated
Predictive Analytics
Not Rated
8.3
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
8
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
7
Not Rated
Responsive Design for Web Access
Not Rated
Mobile Application
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Not Rated
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding ()
Not Rated

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