Item: IBM Cognos Analytics
Rating: 8
Author: Ray Hirte

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is being used as a report engine for an HR and fiance data warehouse. It is also being used for planning and budgeting for all of Hennepin county. It addresses our ability to report on our financial data as well as working to bring our HR data into the warehouse as well. The planning and budgeting has been an efficiency boom for our budgeting.

Pros and Cons

Reporting
Drill throughs
Planning and budgeting
Forecasting

CAFR book reporting
License costs
License monitoring

Alternatives Considered

Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management

It was cost prohibitive to switch platforms we have a huge investment in our Cognos implementation. There was retooling costs for our resources training costs for our users as well as a million $ plus investment in licensing costs. We could have considered a move to the cloud however we don't have any of our major systems in the cloud and we are still apprehensive.

Data Integration

It handles the data sources we need with very little trouble whether it's MS SQL Server or Oracle DB.

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.

Other Software Used

Microsoft BI, Microsoft Access, Oracle Database

Likelihood to Recommend

Great for planning and budgeting. It works well to understand both the resource costs and the other budget costs. It would be nice if it were more real time as we need to run a process to sync up people costs with non people costs. Financial reports are ready for users to run and understand.

Cognos today review

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cognos