Cognos Express
Updated February 03, 2016

Cognos Express

Barry Morris | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review

Software Version

10.2.1

Modules Used

  • IBM Cognos Express Business Intelligence User
  • IBM Cognos Express Performance Management User

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Cognos Express

We implemented the product in less than six weeks. IBM Cognos Express is used across the organization. The main usage is with the sales and marketing teams. The sales team sees what has been delivered to where and when. Most importantly it sends messages when deliveries are late allowing the marketing team to contact recipients that the delivery may be late. It also assists in managing the sales team to see if they are meeting sales targets and generating new leads. It’s also used for ad hoc reporting.
  • Active reports using Rave technology, allows users to use amazing graphics and analytic's with off line reports
  • Having Wright back, in multidimensional cubes, allowing teams to build complex budget’s
  • Integrated Scorecards, the new scorecard tool is easy to implement manage and display in the Cognos dashboards / Reports
  • Integrated maps - the current map functionality is limited, however there are tools that allow amazing add-ons, however it adds to the basic cost.

Cognos Express is a full BI solution. The security level is what a business expects. All reports are based on the same infrastructure - a single version of the truth. It can be used totally on line with no download. As your organization grows you simply upgrade to Cognos Enterprise.

Out of 50 IT personnel almost 40 use Cognos. The majority are consumers that use reports for the daily tasks and some analysts that also create new reports when needed. The sales manager is also a main contributor of reports.
I have not encountered standard data sources I could not use or find a work around to access.
I do not have much to add, as Cognos submits its self to standard solutions it’s easy to manage the security. Allow team leaders to manage their team's folders. It’s basically up to the administer to decide who can see what and where and if he/ she decides to delegate this power.
Cognos Express is limited to 100 users per module, if you have more then 100 users its recommended that you choose IBM Cognos Enterprise. If you are not planning on using a single server, then it is also recommended to use IBM Cognos Enterprise.

IBM Planning Analytics Feature Ratings

Pixel Perfect reports
10
Customizable dashboards
9
Report Formatting Templates
10
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
10
Integration with R or other statistical packages
10
Report sharing and collaboration
10
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
10
Report Delivery Scheduling
10
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
10
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
7
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Responsive Design for Web Access
9
Mobile Application
10
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
9

IBM Cognos Express Reliability