IBM Cognos Reviews

Cognos includes a framework manager concept that allows you to build a framework model. Once you've built the model, you have to release the package and then it's available for reporting.

Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos.

I have been using Cognos for a few years.

In terms of stability, I think that Cognos is more stable than Tableau and Power Bi because of its framework manager concept that allows us to import metadata and store it in the framework manager. 

Cognos is scalable.

Installation and configuration-wise, Cognos is more complicated than Tableau and Power BI — it takes more time. You have to install and configure it, then make the data available before you can do reporting. With Tableau and Power BI, the initial setup is very quick; you can just directly connect to Excel or a file on the desktop. Unlike Cognos, Tableau and Power BI eradicate dependency on a framework model. 

Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Cognos a rating of eight. 

• Data modeling allows for better management and flexibility in exposing data from a single data model to diverse users.
• Flexibility of customization allows for designing custom solutions with ease.
• Scalability: It is very easy to add/remove a node in the Cognos cluster.

We have several reports that users access on a daily basis. We have also created multiple custom solutions to access reports from within an external application, as well as execute and deliver reports in a batch to a network location.

I think that IBM has done a great job with regularly improving this product and keeping up with the competing products. A couple of areas of improvement could be made in alerts for the application monitoring. It is hard to set up alerts when a servicer becomes unresponsive. The other improvement would be in improving the audit capabilities (including the database) of the application. The audit database is somewhat complex in developing good system usage reports.

I have used it for eight years.

I encountered stability issues, but it was more a problem in version 8. Starting from version 10, the stability issues have significantly reduced.

I have not encountered any scalability issues. Cognos scales very easily and we have several options for scaling the environment.

Technical support is 6/10, more for the IBM partner from which we purchased the Cognos licenses. The challenge has been that most of the time, when you purchase it through IBM partners, because they are not the developers of the product, they have to go back to the IBM support and get the information and then relay it back to their customers; that adds extra time to solving the problem.

We have used this solution from the beginning, as it was part of the ERP purchase option.

Initial setup was straightforward. Cognos was very easy to install and configure and the documentation provided by IBM was very user friendly.

Cognos licensing is comparable to other competing products. IBM provides several licensing options such as named vs CPU licenses, and it is better to understand the current and future reporting needs before opting for any licensing option.

IBM Cognos was part of the ERP bundle that we purchased. Cognos was part of the package and was sold through an IBM partner.

Understand your current and future BI needs. Understand the information/insight you are looking to get from your BI application. Understand how you would calculate your ROI on your BI investment. Tool selection should be the last step in the development and deployment of any BI environment.

Dashboards and visualizations are the product’s most valuable features. Most of my customers are moving from reporting to dashboards and mobile. They are keeping reporting only for daily/weekly/monthly basic reports. All other communication of metrics/KPIs and operational information are moving to dashboards and visualizations and many are looking for mobile solutions.

• Better collaboration

There is room for improvement in the user interface, which might simply be a learning curve issue. It has changed dramatically and some of the functionality is very different. For example, getting a list of reports requires some extra clicks to get the full list and the entire file name is not visible in all views.

Some important bugs still exist in the product, including:

• Not being able to change packages on a published report
• Some issues with Framework Manager in Cognos 11 not connecting properly when the 10.2.2 version is still installed

I have used it for two months.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support is good.

We previously used Cognos 10.2.2; upgraded for new features.

Initial setup was complex. Cognos is a very complex tool to configure.

Get bulk licensing if at all possible. IBM has a very structured pricing model.

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

Make sure you have good IBM support in place before installing, and read all associated documentation. Third-party or IBM installation would be recommended.

• Ease of use
• Reliability of product
• Ability to build models with Framework Manager
• Cube build utility
• Ability to build prompt pages for on-demand reporting
• Report distribution facilities: ease of providing multiple report outputs and to write those report outputs to the file system

We use it mainly to augment / replace the reporting deficiencies in the reporting tools that ship with the vendor products.

This is an easy one: visualizations. While being able to use them to provide client-side filtering in Active reports is great, they are so far behind the functionality offered in the basic Cognos charts, it is almost laughable that they even offer them in the product. As the legacy charting has all the functionality I need, I know they can see how far behind the visualizations are, but still have done nothing to improve that part of the product. Filtering client side allows me to offer much more data to the client, but without decent charting it is not very useful.

I have used it for 10+ years.

I have not encountered any stability issues. It pretty much just runs every day. I reboot the report server maybe once every two months, but it is rarely ever necessary. This is one of the big selling points for me.

I have not encountered any scalability issues. I put a lot of thought and effort into report run times. The biggest problems with scalability are usually with concurrency, so I endeavor to limit this.

I rarely use technical support.

The organization switched from Crystal Reports to Cognos. Crystal Reports is just a poor version of Cognos in my opinion.

Initial setup was pretty straightforward. Initially, we had the Content Manager and the report server on the same box, but moving the Content Manager to a SQL server box and having the report server on its own box really helped performance.

I do not like the PVU licensing model. It is nice to not have to worry about handing out individual licenses, but I feel it is terrible to then be limited to the hardware you licensed at the time. I think it is easier to charge business units for adding new users rather than trying to get a big chunk of money all at once to upgrade the hardware.

Spend a lot of time on your data model and then the Framework Manager model before starting any reporting. Also, before starting any reporting, set up report templates both for the prompt page and for the report page. Adding in a table, hidden with a conditional style, to track report changes is a good idea.

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.

Report Studio is most valuable to me, mainly for the active reporting feature as our CEO loves the instant reporting.

The product takes away the need for mundane reporting via Excel spreadsheets freeing up the business areas to concentrate on growing the business.

Every product on the market can be improved, but I would like IBM to stop trying to compete with the smaller players in the market, rushing out versions that nobody wants to migrate to because the version seems unstable.

I’ve been using the Cognos product since 2006; since the old ReportNet days.

We did not encounter any specific stability issues. Like every product, you need to carry some sort of monthly maintenance to make sure that the platform runs smoothly.

We did not encounter any scalability issues. As long as you are following the guidelines set by IBM you should be ok.

If you have a contact within IBM then things are great, but some of the IBM partners (in my opinion) don’t offer the same high standard, (there are gaps in their knowledge).

We never used another solution.

The installation was quite straight forward. But the webserver setup can be a bit tricky.

Recently, IBM have changed the way they package the licensing (which so far seems to give us a better understanding of what we are paying for). The product can seem quite pricey compared to other suitors in the BI arena.

We looked at Microsoft SSRS. But on look and feel, it didn’t give us that professional outlook.

If you are new to the product and want to implement a reporting tool that will be free from issues, get an experienced consultant.

Itis easy to use, and web based.

With BI in place, our staffing department is able to review staff assignment and quickly adjust resources in near real time.

There is room for improvement with the GUI. The product is a web-based application; it is easy to build basic style. However, at a certain level, it lacks support for advanced web programming capabilities, such as JavaScript, Ajax, etc.

I have used it for 12 years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues. The product is built to be an enterprise solution.

Technical support is 8 out of 10. The product has quite a few components. When issues arise, it is not very straightforward to identify root cause, thus difficult to find right support resources for help. My personal experiences are, if you know where the issue occurs and ask the right question, IBM tech support typically can get the answer for you very quickly. Otherwise, it might take some time to get things straightened out.

Other tools were used before, but Cognos provides better functionalities.

It was easy to set up; good documentation.

Cognos offers middle-market and enterprise solutions. The middle market is a great value package for companies with less than 500 users.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated OBIEE and SAP Crystal Reports.

• Understand your needs first.
• Bring in good experts for initial implementation.
• Gradually grow internal resources to be able to do self-support.