IBM Cognos Reviews

I enjoy the flexibility that the application has with Excel. Power users can use Excel functionalities for data analysis and reporting. Also, I like the integration with Excel (Xcelerator) and the ability to source data from numerous sources. Additionally, the use of Revelwood's Dynamo! allows for quick generation of reports.

The added power of Excel with Cognos TM1 allows my company to generate dynamic Excel-based reports to our customers much faster with the look and feel of Excel that they are accustomed to.

It would be more user friendly with GUI navigation. A lot of expertise is required to be able to navigate and perform simple tasks, as well as to create reports with Cognos TM1. I believe a GUI will make it easier for less technical folks (non-power users) to be able to use the tool effectively.

We’ve used Cognos TM1 for four years.

Performance of the product is usually stable and only has issues when there are lots of users during heavy reporting periods.

We have had no scalability issues.

I would rate the technical support 8/10. IBM has been pretty great with maintenance and technical support.

We have had no previous solutions.

The initial setup to install is pretty simple. You will need some technical experience to be able to successfully install the software components.

Licensing and pricing seems fair as compared to other products.

I don't know if the company evaluated other options. They were already using the product before I joined.

I believe it is important to evaluate similar products. I also advise to have a resident expert in-house to support and maintain the platform.

Well, I liked the split Cognos- used to have 2 differents products for reporting. One very friendly for user (query studio) and other one more for super user or tech user (Report studio).
The AdHoc reporting (query studio) are very easy with query studio but this happens only if the package is well done by the modeler. The most valuable feature in query studio is Develop/ Reduce group in a list. For Report Studio, the possibility to create report from SQL Query direct, easy, simple and efficient :)

We reduced IT requests for reporting and improved reports standards. High quality reports.
We used templates and reuse components so it's easy to change lots of report quickly.

Administration and security.

I'm with Cognos's products since 1997. (First products I used was Impromptu, Transformer and Power Play). Last version I have used is 10.1 (Query and Report Studio).

Well, developing packages makes deployment a bit long in case of emergency.
Also, for performance issues, avoid to connect the package's data on OLTP databases. Always use de-normalised databases, (ODS) or OLAP databases.

Server not responding some times

No

With IBM it is too complicated, I used a partner.

With IBM it is too complicated, I used a partner.

No

Not too complex.

At that time I was implementing with the Cognos team and in-house. People from Cognos were very experienced.

I can't remember. But now I'm looking to go around looking at BI Tools to advise my customers which ones are best according to theirs needs. I will go deeper in Microsoft (for the price), Tableau for the visualisation and easy deploy and of course Cognos because it can do all BI needs (but it's expensive).
PS. Cognos Express is welcome with lower licensing price.

If you are looking for an all integrated, scalable and high quality reporting tool, Cognos is a solution to consider. But, the price is a factor too.
You need to define well your needs for reporting, chose the right component you want to start first and start small.

We use IBM Cognos for enterprise analytics and reporting. IBM Cognos is an easy-to-use solution that has simple drag-and-drop features.

The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved.

I have been using IBM Cognos for a few years.

The solution’s technical support is not so good. I rate the solution’s technical support a six or seven out of ten.

Neutral

The solution's basic use cases are business reporting and data analysis, and it's bundled with most of the products. All IBM products in our region should be promoted more.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I primarily use IBM Cognos for order management.

Cognos' most valuable features are the bundled studios, simple UI, and advanced features like the ability to create data modules.

There are some problems with how Cognos handles huge data sets and when connecting with multiple sources and searching the data. In the next release, Cognos should include artificial intelligence features.

I've been working with this solution for over eight years.

Cognos' scalability is good.

IBM's support community is excellent, and there's a large knowledge base if we have any problems. When I have a problem, and I reach out to the support team, my problem gets addressed within a couple of days.

Positive

I've also used Tableau and Power BI, but Tableau doesn't support data modeling.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Anybody can learn to use Cognos, but they need some data analytics skills and knowledge of data warehousing, including the complete data pipeline from the source to creating reports. IBM's developer network provides lots of resources for learning this tool and documentation for all versions. I would rate Cognos as seven out of ten.

It has the ability to model OLTP data sources with Framework Mgr. instead of building a data warehouse. Building a Framework metadata model takes weeks, while building a data warehouse takes 12-24 months.

The Framework model won't perform as fast as a properly designed and optimized DW, but it will give you accurate results with a much lower investment. Then, when your company is ready to invest in the DW, it can take the structure of the Framework model and map it to the DW tables, and all of your reports still work.

We are a Cognos-only training and consulting company so our business depends on Cognos.

The one that sticks out in my mind is the ability to search the relational data tree for query items (fields). I believe this functionality has been added in v11 (Cognos Analytics). The user interface in v10 is a little dated and not as tablet-friendly as some of the other viz tools. This has been greatly improved in v11.

I have used it for three years.

There are no stability issues as long as the image is properly built and fix packs are installed.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Over a few years, we have opened only a couple of tickets with IBM and all have been handled professionally and promptly.

We have always used Cognos. We recently demo'd trial versions of Microsoft and Tableau against Cognos v11 and we still think Cognos is the better product for medium and large enterprises.

Building the image for a new version takes several hours. Of course, IBM has cloud options that eliminate the need for keeping your own images.

Like any enterprise software product, make sure you negotiate. IBM simplified the licensing in 2014, so I can't suggest any improvements there.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

Make sure your CFO understands the investment required for a successful BI installation that will give you one version of the truth, whether it's Cognos or another vendor. The investment is not only in software and hardware, but in the people who use it.

The report designer, Report Studio, is incredibly versatile and easy to use. Reports can be served in multiple formats, such as PDF, HTML, Excel, or even as a JSON data source. The meta-modeling tools allows for a complex security system which can automatically filter data, in any report or ad-hoc tool, based on a user's roles or groups.

The use of ad-hoc tools, like Workspace, has reduced the number of design requests, freeing the reporting team for more pressing and difficult problems.

Dashboards are slow compared to other tools currently on the market. Visualizations are improving, but still difficult to get just right. The default mapping solution included is only useful for the most basic requirements.

9 years.

Some users are afraid using adhoc tools. Migration projects which fail to take into account the different strengths of Cognos, demanding 100% pixel perfect migrations, will often fail.

The querying engine occasionally chokes on very large or complex datasets. Poorly designed meta-models can also cause trouble. Cognos will occasionally create dump files that can be larger than a gig each.

International distributed systems can have latency and consistency issues. The default round-robin load balancing works well, but the admin needs to remember to configure the weighting correctly.

Enhancement requests take a very long time to get into production. IBM works on the "squeaky wheel" principle.

IBM technical support can usually solve any problems. If it's not something they've run into previously, it can take a long time to get a straight answer. They provide hotfixes for really urgent bugs that are affecting production.

Most of my clients are long time Cognos users. Some of them are migrating away from Hyperion Brio because of lack of support.

At the most basic level, Cognos is a "next-next-next" install. While this works for very simple, low usage systems, in order to really get the most out of it it requires a great deal of tuning.

As a consultant, the vast majority of my clients hire out the development team. A few times I've been brought on to provide additional temporary support or training.

Hire experts to come in and do the initial setup and meta-model. Learn from them. Get training. Training is invaluable when it comes to using the various tools.