How we use IBM Cognos Analytics at Office Depot
November 03, 2020
How we use IBM Cognos Analytics at Office Depot
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- Analysis Studio
- Query Studio
- Report Studio
- Dashboard
Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cognos Analytics
IBM Cognos Analytics is being used across our whole organization, from the stores that access links to previously executed reports that are saved as outputs to our headquarters and field users who connect to IBM Cognos Analytics to execute, on demand, any canned report. Users have the ability to self service by creating their own ad-hoc reports. We have a group of IT employees that creates all model/packages needed for this to be possible. We also run batch process every morning and schedule a set of reports that are used by executives and different users across multiple departments like finance, supply chain, store operations.
- Schedules and delivery of reports
- Visualizations in the latest version 11.1.7
- Ease of use for end users
- Ability to allow users ad-hoc reporting
- Active reports (disconnected/portable reports)
- More up-to-date functions available with recent RDBS technologies like Snowflake
- Better handling of in memory capabilities (cache, datasets)
- Time of building and delivering data. Users would take hours to create a report and when automated with Cognos, it would eliminate all those man-hours
- Easier access to the different data sources and applications within the company
- One enterprise license and not having to pay for named users
- Reporting tools are very user friendly, allowing end users to quickly access the company's data
IBM Cognos Analytics is catching up to Tableau Desktop in the only area that Tableau Desktop had an advantage (visualizations). IBM Cognos Analytics can do a lot more than what Tableau Desktop does with its advanced pixel perfect tools, ease of use, and delivery options to users. The ability to schedule reports and provide them with parameters, security, administration, etc. makes IBM Cognos Analytics a more robust product overall.
The main reporting tools (reports and dashboard) are intuitive and allow users with minimal experience to create their own ad-hoc reports, slice and dice the company's data, and find answers to questions they have. The ability to then share those same reports with colleagues (so they can do their own customizations) very quickly has helped a lot in the decision making about specific business needs.
Data governance is very important to our company. Especially with new laws like the CCPA and others, protection of data is very important and critical for sensitive data. With IBM Cognos Analytics we have been able to secure this data at different levels and across the different tools that IBM Cognos Analytics has, from metadata/design tools like Framework Manager through the IBM Cognos Analytics portal, where every single object (folder, report, data item within reports) can be secured based on the company's LDAP.