IBM Cognos Reviews

I use IBM Cognos for various purposes in our business. We use it to generate email triggers based on alerts as a self-service BI tool where users can drag and drop for analysis and predictive analysis using the integrated IBM Watson. We also use it for presentations and business reporting.

You can customize your data according to your needs. It has all the functions and capabilities, making it easy to use. You can customize datasets at the business layer based on your preferences, which is very convenient. Compared to Power BI, IBM Cognos offers more flexibility, like joining data at the report level and applying any needed customizations. You can also set up role-level security so users only see the data they need. Additionally, you can distribute reports as needed. It's easy to integrate with other systems like Active Directory.

The tool integrates IBM Watson, which is used for predictive analysis. Simply dragging and dropping your data, IBM Watson provides trends and insights, making Cognos stronger in AI than other tools.

The tool can join data from different sources, write back to databases, generate alerts, and be customized to our preferences. It's an enterprise BI tool that's more powerful than just visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau.

I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older versions like IBM Cognos 10 or 8. Additionally, the Event Studio, which offered great flexibility in previous versions, is no longer available in IBM Cognos Analytics 12. These are areas that could be improved to enhance the product.

I have been working with the product for eight years. 

I rate the solution's stability a seven out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a seven out of ten. 

The tool's installation and maintenance are easy, and the setup process is quite easy—I'd rate it an eight out of ten. Deployment only takes about 30-40 minutes, involving exporting a package from development and importing it to production.

IBM Cognos is priced reasonable. However, it is more expensive than Power BI and Tableau. 

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

We use IBM Cognos for dynamic reporting to drill down to the details such as product category and item level. For example, call centers need data down to the entry level for a transaction. We use the solution to provide sales trends and forecasts as well.

Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly.

With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions.

I like being able to drill down to the details. The forecasting system is a valuable feature as well.

Recently, Python scripting was added, and there will be opportunities to integrate AI into the system to help provide a better experience for management staff when forecasting sales.

Data modeling needs to be improved. We use the ETL process, and when we get errors, we then need to identify which structural change is required. The error messaging should be better. They should be descriptive rather than semantic.

IBM should provide more support for Cognos development. It is quite limited in Pakistan.

In the next release, I would like to have a mobile app for Cognos. For instance, Power BI has a mobile app for their solution, and I would like Cognos to do the same.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate the scalability of IBM Cognos at seven. We have 25 people who use this solution.

The scope of technical support for Cognos is limited in Pakistan, and I would rate it at eight out of ten.

Positive

We previously used Microsoft Power BI, Qlik Sense, and Tableau but had licensing issues with them. We switched to IBM Cognos because it's a mature solution. Also, the user interface and integration are quite simple as compared to those of other solutions such as Power BI. Also, we liked that IBM Cognos has forecasting and data structuring capabilities.

The initial setup was straightforward for me because of my previous experience with Power BI and other solutions. I would rate the setup process at eight out of ten.

I created a prototype based on input provided by process owners. It took about six to seven months to deploy the solution.

I implemented it myself with the help of a reseller. I had two other team members, one who was responsible for ETL generation and the other for the physical database and backup. We have one person who maintains the solution.

On a scale from one to ten where one is low pricing and ten is high pricing, I would rate this solution at eight. 

Because of IBM Cognos' design and implementation and because it better engages the user and customer, I rate it at nine out of ten.

I have used IBM Cognos for 15 years as a business user, but for most of this time I only used the basic functionality of Cognos with Analysis Studio. However, two years ago we started using the new version of Cognos (11) and it was then that we began using more functionality overall. Notably, there are more features for reporting, so we can simply create modules and explore them with dashboarding.

Our deployment is situated on-premises, although we do use external databases connected to Excel, for instance. The packages that we use are all made inside the Cognos 11 environment. 

IBM Cognos has helped improve the quality of our KPIs because we can now deliver data and reports without human intervention.

We are using the self-service capabilities for business users in the new version and it is a blessing to us because now we don't feel any pain with regards to the IT department. We can use the full functionality and develop dashboards without the help of the IT people and without having to start up a whole new project. This is very important because we can multiply the results. With no bottleneck coming from the IT department, we reduce the cost of improving our KPIs.

The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way.

Tableau and Power BI also have similar features, where they try to use graphic functionality to analyze the data. And yes, there are more people using these solutions than Cognos, but for us the most important thing is that both the data and the data splitting functionality are in one place.

I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality.

The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.

I have been using IBM Cognos for 15 years.

The performance is okay. Sometimes we have small interruptions and I suspect these are due to configuration changes, but I don't know for sure. Cognos was one of our first applications running and it's quite stable.

As a business user, we try to do cross solutions to provide information for any department, and then we make it scalable. If the performance isn't good, we can either adjust the scalability of the data or the data strategy itself.

Currently, there are more than 2,000 users of Cognos in my organization, as it is mainly a cooperative tool for analysis. I think with the added capabilities and improved user experience of the new version we can extend the use of Cognos to even more people. We try to democratize the analysis of data with the dashboard as it is the easiest way to extend our usage of Cognos.

There are other solutions we also use, such as Tableau and Power Bi, depending on the project. But in these applications, there isn't the same amount of data available to analyze, so you have to provide the data for each dashboard, in each case. For all the solutions we use, we have safety measures to ensure the security of the data, but with Tableau and Power BI, the setup is less organized than Cognos.

Our IT department uses their personnel as well as consultants to maintain the Cognos environment.

I don't know the exact cost, but I believe Cognos is quite expensive, especially when it comes to the support consultants and the procedures that need to be applied.

My advice to others is to make solutions with a bridge between them to optimize the use of the data. In addition, it's important to structure your data well to facilitate better understanding among your users. When users use a data module, for example, it must have well-structured folders which include the documentation, the calculations, the KPIs, etc. We train to make all the KPIs in the data module, because if you make the KPIs in the report or in the dashboard, then you can't use those KPIs in other objects. We have had other solutions from different consultants where they made the calculations with the reports, such that to make another report, you would have to repeat the calculation.

Another piece of advice is not to use the Analysis Studio's reporting tool, because it's very complex to maintain. Instead, we tend to use the dashboard, and that is what I would recommend to others as well.

On the whole, I would rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.

I am using IBM Cognos the analytical pack that is provided, I've used it to do a lot of forecasting, proactive analytics, prescriptive, predictive analytics, and correlation analysis. Additionally, I have developed some leadership dashboards.

The correlation analysis is excellent. It's one of the best that I have used to date.

The data uploads that we do, such as Excel files, have a lot of restrictions. If we can make it a bit more user-friendly, allowing us to have more flexibility it would be a great help.

In the next release of the solution, It would be a great addition to the analytical tool pack if there were histograms on the fly it would be a benefit. I know there is a workaround on IBM Cognos and I've used that workaround to develop the histograms, but not everyone is that tech-savvy. It would be a great help if we had some of these features, such as histogram, box plots, on the fly.

Lastly, the solution could improve by adding some of the user-friendly statistical calculations, such as percentile calculations, median, mode, for calculations.

I have been using IBM Cognos for approximately two years.

The stability of IBM Cognos is excellent.

IBM Cognos is used on a daily basis and sometimes for the entire day. It is scalable. We have approximately 2,500 users using the solution. 

We had an issue with the dashboards and we were in touch with the technical support from IBM to resolve the problem.

On the overall experience with the technical support, I would rate them a four out of five. However, the initial response time could improve.

The analytical parts of IBM Cognos are some of the best in the market, it is excellent. I've used Qlik Sense, Microsoft BI, Oracle Business Intelligence, and to some extent Tableau. The second feature that IBM Cognos is excellent with, is the table structure that we can create on the fly. I have had a very good experience with them.

Microsoft BI is much more user-friendly and non-technical personnel can also start working on the Microsoft BI quickly. It would be great if IBM Cognos would also look at doing something on that front, where a non-technical person can also develop some small, very basic dashboard on their own.

The initial setup was a bit complex. 

The joins and structures that we had to create were somewhat difficult. I've worked on the OB as well and the RPD constructions that we do on OB are pretty straightforward. If we have some features such as we have in Oracle Business Intelligence, of the RPD structure, it would be a great help for IBM Cognos.

I would rate the complexity a three out of five.

We used support from the vendor for the implementation. It took approximately one and a half months for the process.

For some of the aspects of the solution requires maintenance. One of the features that we were using is the development of interactive and interdependent dashboards. For some reason, this dashboard used to fail when we would get out of the dashboard and close IBM Cognos and come back to IBM Cognos again. That required an upgrade on the application, which we did, but it was still not working. This issue required some maintenance to resolve.

IBM Cognos price is on the higher side of the spectrum. However, with the features that it brings, such as correlation analysis, it's worth the money. They should look at the pricing more clearly because it's a little on the higher side.

My advice to others is to be very particular about the architecture that you are developing because once you deploy it, it's really difficult to change and very complex to change. Once you deploy it and start working on it, and then you realize that something that you had to do, you have not done it right, it's a really complex process to change it.

The second thing I would advise is always to keep on top of the updates that IBM Cognos sends over. Some of the features that you might require in your work environment only come with the updates. You need to upgrade your application and that is when the features would be available.

Lastly, make sure that you explore every bit and piece of the analytical world of application because there are some very good features that the IBM Cognos brings in. It would be great if you explored everything and then start using it. 

If the cost is not a problem for the organization, then I would highly recommend IBM Cognos.

I rate IBM Cognos a seven out of ten.

We use IBM Cognos to help clients with reporting.

Dashboarding, reporting, and ad hoc reporting are the valuable features of IBM Cognos.

There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool.

I have been using IBM Cognos for many years.

We have their premier dedicated support. I rate the solution's technical support eight and a half out of ten.

The solution's initial setup is not too bad. We have IBM support if we run into issues.

Overall, I rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.

I have used the solution for business intelligence across various commercial sectors, including banking, finance, luxury goods, etc.

The solution's most valuable feature is scalability.

The solution's support needs improvement. Also, they should add better administrative tools.

We have been using the solution for 25 years.

It is a stable product. I rate it an eight for stability.

We have 3000 end users of the solution as our customers. I rate its scalability a nine.

The solution's technical support could be better.

Neutral

I rate the solution's initial setup process as a five. It takes a year to complete.

The solution is averagely priced. I rate it as a five for pricing. We have to pay extra to buy third-party administrative tools.

It is a good tool for a multinational enterprise. I rate it as an eight.

When we started with the TM1 version of IBM Cognos, we developed budgeting projects, and it was successful. We also completed our first project five years ago using the solution.

IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets. We use it monthly for our tax numbers, and the solution automatically provides them.

The solution can be used for projects focused on employees' wages, contracts, contracted salaries, and additional outcomes.

With IBM Cognos Report Studio, we have a lot of operational information, which helps with sales, inventories, and costs from many different sources.

We have an analytical team, and they complete reports. We shuttle them, and many people in our company get information in Excel and email.

It has improved our credit department. They can get information quickly about client debts, and we've seen a yield through this solution. In addition, we combine sources like sales and production and have multiple reports that our team receives.

The TM1 feature is good because it produces numbers automatically. In addition, it has Super Excel, and there are big groups with a lot of information calculated quickly. 

IBM Cognos is easy to use and helps connect with databases and the data from our systems. It is also easy to learn and teach new team members.

We started working with Power BI, which we feel will be number one in a couple of years. Even though it still has some improvement, it's a promising tool. All BI tools have similar issues to IBM Cognos.

Regarding additional features, it would be good if the solution had conditional formatting similar to Excel, where you can conditionally format based on colour. For example, colour scales like green, yellow, and red make it easier to categorize tables, rows or columns by colour. Unfortunately, this feature does not exist in any BI tool.

We have been using this solution for seven years. It is deployed on-premises, and we are using version TM1.

This solution is stable.

It is a scalable solution. We have about six people on our analytics team and two IT employees. The IT employees maintain a data warehouse and work with SQL where the data comes to Cognos.

We do not need to increase our usage because our analytics team reports and sends all the information to employees, managers, top management and others in the company.

We have not engaged with technical support. We also have our own IT support, and there are no problems.

We used Excel before IBM Cognos, and we switched because of the benefit of analytics. Top management also wanted the analytics and created this initiative.

We completed the deployment in-house.

We haven't calculated our ROI, but if I were to survey top management or lower management, they would all say they benefit.

I rate this product a ten out of ten. I would advise a new user of IBM Cognos to have good IT support and people.

We use IBM Cognos for reports. We build customized reports from our vendor.

IBM Cognos did provide information and data that was utilized by the lines of businesses, in order to make their business decisions. It was a database of record information type reporting, that was disseminated out into the different lines and they made their business decisions based on that data.

Comparing IBM Cognos to other applications, once a person is trained on it or they have developed a skill set to operate the application, it is best in its category.

IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement.

In order for IBM Cognos to survive, they need to keep up with dashboarding. I know they're becoming more agile as far as being able to move away from a framework manager and use modules, which is great in order to build the models. They need to be able to compete with Microsoft B because Microsoft BI has beaten them up as far as reporting and dashboarding. They need to improve to better compete with other solutions.

I have been using IBM Cognos for approximately nine years.

The performance of IBM Cognos is good. However, it is important that it is implemented correctly with the proper resources available. The person managing it has to have the skill sets to understand how to operate the application. It's very reliable for what it does.

You could scale IBM Cognos to any size. I don't believe that the institution that I worked with or worked for had it implemented to the best of the application's ability. Therefore, it was undervalued as far as how it was utilized.

We have approximately 500 to 600 people in my organization using the solution.

IBM Cognos was used extensively for its purpose. It could have been used more. We did not need the additional application that was bought by the company. The task that these other applications were being bought for, could have been performed very well with IBM Cognos. However, the management lack of understanding of the application, and they didn't have the skill sets to work with the equipment nor did they have the willingness to work with it.

IBM Cognos technical support is very cumbersome. A large organization, such as IBM is very cumbersome when it comes to technical support because without having a dedicated support person for our company every time a ticket was called in, it was the same basic fundamental send me this file, send me that file. They didn't understand and we didn't have a dedicated source. 

I rate the technical support from IBM Cognos a three out of five.

We have a team of two that did the maintenance and support of the solution. I did all of the maintenance and upkeep of the application and the upgrade and everything else. 

Overall IBM Cognos is not maintenance heavy. Once you set it up properly, it runs close to maintenance-free.

There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos.

I have evaluated Microsoft BI.

Once you develop the skill set to operate the IBM Cognos application, it's a very robust system.

IBM Cognos has come a long way and they've done a lot of things with dashboarding, but it could be a little, too late, and not enough. They need to do better.

I rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.