IBM Cognos Reviews

I primary use IBM Cognos BI as the preferred tool for my consultancy activity. I use it since 1999, and I've worked with IBM Cognos suite since its version 5.5 until the current version 11.

Flexibility: It offers a variety of technical solutions to better satisfy each customer’s needs and scenarios.

IBM Cognos BI (version 10) is a suite of different modules for reporting and analysis:

• Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting.
• Workspace Advanced: A mid-powerful tool, to create reports of medium complexity.
• Query Studio: An easy tool to quickly create ad-hoc queries (with a simple list, or crosstab, or chart).
• Analysis Studio: A simple tool to create analysis (like pivot-tables in Excel).
• Workspace: A very basic tool to build and show dashboards using other reports components.
• Metric Studio: A tool to create scorecards showing trends for corporate KPI and metrics.
• Event Studio: A tool that notifies the user of events happening in corporate data.

Each of them is perfect for a specific need.

For the metadata modeling activity, as well, Cognos offers several modeling tools:

• Framework Manager: The most flexible and used tool for metadata modeling.
• Transformer: The tool to create multi-dimensional cubes (MOLAP cubes).
• Cube Designer: The tool to create dynamic cubes (ROLAP cubes).
• Metric Designer: The tool to create data packages to be used by Metric Studio to create scorecards.

Depending on how much data has to be analyzed (or other factors), the modeler will decide which modeling tool to use.

I’m a freelancer; I am a consultant. I’ve helped hundreds of customers to better understand their business and to make better decisions.

I think IBM Cognos BI solution needs improvements in:

1) chart quality: many other competitors have charts and graphics that look much better and that provide dynamic effects. Cognos doesn't.

2) data source connections: many other competitors support connections to cloud and innovative data sources (Google Analytics, Facebook, Microsoft Azure, MongoDb, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft SharePoint and so on), that IBM Cognos BI cannot connect to.

3) maps: IBM Cognos BI have only 35 predefined maps. If you need a map of a particular area, you need to buy it (in MapInfo or Esri formats) and convert it in Cognos format, and this is pretty a long way. Furthermore, it's very inconvenient to use Google Maps maps, since this kind of integration is not native.

I sometimes encounter stability issues, but they’re rarely really issues.

I have never encountered any scalability issues. The product easily scales very well.

I would rate technical support between 2 and 3 our of 10. Several times in the past, I have needed the help of IBM official technical support, and there was more lost time than any actual contribution received. The IBM technical support people often know IBM products less than I do. So, nowadays, I no longer make use of technical support; it’s almost always useless. This means I do not waste a lot of time for no reason.

I’ve always used this solution.

When I initially studied the IBM Cognos software, it was not so easy to fully understand, but now all in all it’s not so complex.

I did not evaluate other options before choosing IBM Cognos.

In the last weeks I'm having a look to Tableau Software.

Be sure you have an expert Cognos consultant before starting.

The most valuable features are the AI-based questions.

The storyboarding and storytelling features of Cognos Enterprise are both very good.

The solution offers excellent dashboard creation capabilities. I use this extensively.

The initial setup is quite straightforward.

Overall, there aren't any features that are lacking in the product.

The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution.

I'd like to see more predictive analytics enhancements in future releases.

I've been using this solution for our years now.

The solution is very stable. We don't worry about bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash on us at all. It doesn't freeze. It's reliable.

You can scale the solution if you need to. That's not a problem.

At our organization, we have between 150 and 200 people using it at any given time.

We've dealt with technical support in the past. We found them to be helpful. We've been satisfied with the service provided.

We did use Cognos Express originally. It's built for smaller deployments, and we were on the margins in terms of parameters. In the end, our organization found that it was too small for our needs and we moved up to their Enterprise option.

We also use Phillips and Oracle Business Intelligence as well as Power BI.

The initial setup isn't very complex. It's mostly straightforward. However, due to the setup of our organization and its architecture, we did face a few specific complexities during implementation.

We have seven people who handle the administration as needed.

We had someone who helped us set everything up and provide the required technical training.

We'd like the pricing to be reduced, of course. We'd like to reduce the cost period.

I'm a user, not a vendor or a reseller.

We use the enterprise version of the product.

In terms of BI tools, I'd advise others that this is one of the best. It was easy to use once we had the initial training that is required. The features such as storytelling, AI based sessions, are great. I would recommend it to other companies for sure.

On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it at an eight.

We use it for standard reporting in the platform, and we are satisfied with the product.

1. It helps us deliver information to people in different functions. 
2. It is possible to have people make their own reports, so they have service functionality.

A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports. 

We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics.

The latest version is very stable. We have not had any problems.

I have found no problems with scalability. With a good server, everything works.

IBM Cognos can improve in this area. Both IBM and our company do research to find solutions, and we are sometimes faster than they are in providing the solution that works, usually by studying documents. 

We can use the normal routines sufficiently to solve problems. However, if we try to add components which are not streamlined or well-known, we have to work it out without the technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I was not involved in this process. The product was chosen 18 years ago.

We always return to the same vendors, such as IBM, SAP, and Tableau. If there is an existing environment where a lot of reports are outdated, changes need to be made. If we have a running system that is up with no technical problems and the price is not changing drastically, then no change is necessary.

I would rate this solution as a nine out of 10, because of the support. Other than support, everything works.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: When we search for a vendor, we always make comparisons between them. In France, we were surprised by the product, what it delivers, and what is included in the package. There are a lot of different tools on the market that deliver on some points, but not all.

Cognos Analytics gives us a lot of possibilities, including dashboarding, which you would have to purchase additionally from other providers. Every three or four years, we do some benchmarking to analyze the product.

It is an enterprise solution. It provides scalability, reliability, security, and performance for large scale organizations. Without these features, it would become a useless tool for large organizations.

The tool identifies trends and anomalies before it is too late, i.e., before the end-of-the-year results. This prevents customers from getting angry and provides savings opportunities.

For versions 8 and 10, I would like to see better visualizations and geo-mapping.
Version 10 has out-of-the-box charts and maps that are very outdated, look old, and are static (not interactive).

There seems to have been major improvements on visualizations in Cognos Analytics (Version 11).

I have used this solution since 2001, with versions 6.6.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

Sometimes technical support can be hit and miss. However, IBM has some very good technicians.

I used a different solution in a prior organization. They switched from Cognos to Business Objects. The decision was made due to the ERP provider (Epic) having some pre-built BI solutions. In order to keep the certification, my organization had to use their reports.

Cognos has come a long way. Fifteen years ago, the installation and setup was very complicated.

It is not difficult nowadays. However, the tune-up is still tricky.

Clearly define the levels of access and user groups to give access to tools and data. It is hard to change once something is in place.

We have found this software to be insightful in finding and defining true performance of products and services. The numbers give the details and there is no place to hide.

This software identifies normal product sales, margins and costing, which are basic key performance indicators. We then use this to identify service of customers and vendors. Recently “COST TO SERVE” reporting has been a “HOT” supply chain tool because this identifies the business activities and overhead costs. This reporting is NOT your (ABC) activity-based costing reporting, but a mixture of costing drivers, which usually provides surprising results.

We have also seen improvements in manufacturing processes because the tool identifies bottlenecks quickly. Most recently, the ability to have mobile reporting to our user site has been very important to drive down information.

We are excited about more features for cloud and web analytics:
- Cloud: Companies are really starting to embrace the cloud for running their business intelligence software. There is so much to choose from for supporting and servicing cloud users than 1-2 years ago.
- Web analytics: For me, this is where you see who is searching for your products and services. You can find out where in the country/world and know more about the user too. This gives you insight on your web presence and how your social media and marketing campaigns are performing. Also, who’s talking about your products and services and why? You can see what the issues are and what you are doing well.

We have used Cognos Project for 20 years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

Once the users are trained on the product, everyone wants to use it, so it’s best when defining your in-house server or cloud that you incorporate future needs.

Technical support is excellent and very responsive. They have different levels of support for response time that can be purchased in addition to web help.

We had training but were able to do the install in-house.

Buy the software and licenses that you will need for the next 12-15 months.

We tried Microsoft’s offerings but found them not as full featured as Cognos.

Take time to understand your data. Decide which reporting must be from live data and what data could be taken from a data repository. Prioritize your reporting needs. Add proper time for validation and training.

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 have one separate team who are handling IBM Cognos, however, I've also worked on it. We use it for auto mails and keeping reports just to provide data extraction activities on daily basis.

In Cognos, we use is the auto-mail functionality. 

The dashboards are great.

Our team, the BI team, has implemented Qlik as well, and currently, we are using Qlik for visualization. It allows for many visual reports.

For smaller reports, the summary works well.

The initial setup is very straightforward. 

I don't manage much in the backend, however, we see a lot of issues in Cognos in terms of storage as well as a lot of failures on a daily basis. 

There are separate people managing all these things. It's my understanding that these issues are very frequent. There are some gaps in Cognos. For example, our data volume is huge. Whenever our users try to download reports, the main user used to avoid data extraction requests so that users could actually go into Cognos and download the reports. When it comes to the size, long reports take a lot of time and the performance is not that so good. Finance or marketing reports, for example, are longer and take longer to download. 

When it comes to analytics, we'd like to see some manual data capabilities. 

The scalability could be better.

They should provide improved visual reporting. 

I've been using the solution for two years. 

The stability is okay, however, sometimes we are not able to utilize all the features due to some performance issue.

The scalability of the solution isn't ideal. There are a lot of aspects of scalability that need improvement. 

We have 700 users on the solution.

In my organization, I didn't directly interact with IBM, however, it is my understanding that support is good whenever you are facing trouble. Our team had connected with them and had success. 

Postgre and Cognos were chosen initially. Right now, for the BI tool, the company has migrated to Qlik. We are still looking for a database.

The deployment was easy and very straightforward. The deployment was not difficult. 

I'd rate the solution at a four out of five. 

We have around three members who are maintaining Cognos. On a daily basis, they monitor schedules and all those things, such as maintenance, storage, et cetera.

We handled the implementation internally. We did not need any outside assistance from integrators or consultants. 

I don't deal with the licensing aspect of the solution. I can't speak to the exact costs. 

We currently have plans to switch to Qlik. It's better for visualization. 

We're an IBM customer and end-user.

With less volume, potential users should definitely go with Cognos. It's great for automating emails and other smaller duties. Cognos is better in those endeavors.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

I am using  IBM Cognos for enterprise reporting.

The most valuable features of IBM Cognos are governance and enterprise reporting.

In IBM Cognos it always takes too long to build enterprise reporting, but I don't think that making another product can be solved.

Tableau and PowerBI is a tool, but enterprise reporting is a platform where you put all kinds of information together.

I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page.

I have been using IBM Cognos for many years.

The stability is good.

IBM Cognos is very scalable.

One of our customers has 1,000 users using the solution and 300 unique users every week running reports.

IBM has a good support when you have concrete technical questions.

My company decided to build a data warehouse and they wanted to have the best reporting solution on top of it. That was the reason we are using IBM Cognos.

I started with Portal Play and then moved to IBM Cognos which made the installation straightforward because I have known the history of these solutions and I had a lot of time with it. However, the challenge is to get people to build their own reports and to understand data.

The time for installation depends on a lot of factors. The last time we did an integration with an API, it took five months to build the dashboard, in IBM Cognos it took one hour. It took five months to get the data and one hour to build the dashboard.

We did the implementation ourselves. We used the Azure platform to receive the data from an API and we send it up to IBM Cognos for the database.

For maintenance of the IBM Cognos service, we have one person using 12 days a year, for patching or the install of new releases.

There is a standard license required to use this solution. There are some additional tools but I am not sure if they are an extra cost.

My advice is if you are able to solve your problem with an easier tool than IBM Cognos, you should use it. However, if you have a complex problem and you want to distribute a lot of information about the users it is important to get the users to build good reports, then I think is the best tool in the market.

I rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.