IBM Cognos Reviews

We use this solution to create and deploy security packages throughout the network, as well as system analysis reporting.

This solution has provided us with a single control tool, which allows us to easily provide reports for the different sections of our banking environment.

The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us.

We also like data module that comes with this product.

We would like to see development of the product's UI function, to make it more of a UI tool that can be configured as required.

We have been using this solution for five years.

We have found this solution to be stable, but the products performance can be affected by the servers in use, if it is being hosted on-premises.

The initial setup for this solution is straightforward, if the staff involved are experienced with the product. However, the deployment takes time to carry out.

We implemented the solution using our in-house team.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use cases for IBM Cognos are operational and other reports. 

The three IBM Cognos features I find the most valuable are Dynamic Cubes, PowerPlay, and Watson. 

I would like to see the introduction of mapbooks for supporting some geographical information. IBM Cognos could be improved with some analytical solutions that could help us make predictions.

I have been using IBM Cognos for five years, I think. 

We have 700 individuals using the solution and plan on increasing that number. 

I think the IBM Cognos tech support is good. 

I don't know what the initial setup was like because I wasn't with the company at that time. 

I can't say much about the licensing costs because I am not privy to that information. However, I do know we are sharing a global license. 

On a scale of one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best, I would give IBM Cognos a nine for overall performance. 

Most of my customers are on-premise, but I have two customers who are on the cloud.

IBM Cognos is used for reporting and I work with all businesses, but mainly in the banking and insurance industry.

The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them.

IBM Cognos is a very big solution, and it is similar to other large solutions, such as SAP and Oracle, everything is in one solution and one platform. It's very easy to use from one to the other.

The new data module makes life much easier when you combine it with very complex modules. You can build and combine things very quickly if you need to. You can keep the main organizational data structure and then you can combine it with specific external usage. It's very practical at that level.

It is very important for large organizations to have a secure solution, and this solution is secure. I trust IBM a lot. Having the full web organization structure and organization local modules, you are about to do small operations quickly.

There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos.

That would be nicer if you'd have more charts, the ability to add charts easily. That would be a big improvement. However, the maps have been improved immensely which I am happy with.

Once you put a few requests into IBM for changes, it might take six to 12 months. A lot of the requests are responded to and they upgrade or change the feature. When you make a report and you plan it in advance and you want to have smart dates in your planning, this is a bit limited. It is a small issue and you can work around it quite easily but it would be something they can improve.

If you want to see the new feature in someone else's product it takes time, and for IBM Cognos it is approximately six to 12 months for it to be implemented. The other cloud competitors will have it. 

I have been using IBM Cognos for approximately 18 years.

IBM Cognos is highly stable. This is one of the largest values of the solution.

The solution is highly scalable.

Technical support has been improving a lot over the last two years. I add my questions in an online IBM forum and people from the development have directly contacted me with a solution. I'm really happy with it.

The initial setup of IBM Cognos is complex. It takes time and experience to know how to do it. You can't only install it, there are a lot of things you need to take into consideration before you begin. You have to make sure you have the right hardware specifications, and that you are not conflicting with any firewalls. You can put it on many servers and for large organizations. The solution can handle complex issues that other solutions can't. Most of the smaller products can't handle it. IBM Cognos is efficient at handling multi servers with data coming from many places and organizing it into one place. The implementation can take a long time because the requirements are complex.

The basic setup will take approximately one day. If it is not a basic implementation the time depends on how complex the data is and how much needs to be worked on. For example, on a predefined data warehouse, in which everything has been done, the setup might only be a few hours then you can start working.

It can be between hours and months. It depends on the context of how many databases are being used, fields, and calculations. You can bring 500 tables and none of them are difficult, but then you have one table with three calculations and takes three weeks to build because those calculations are complex. it doesn't matter which tool you use.

The amount of people needed to support the implementation depends on the customer. If it's a small business-sized customer with 10 to 20 users, I can do the implementation by myself. If it's a larger business then sometimes four, five people.

The maintenance can be very minimal because the data structure doesn't change. However, on the other hand, some customers have the requirements over time to change.

IBM Cognos can provide a substantial return on investment but it depends on the implementation and use case. I've been in organizations where I improved delivery from 24 hours to an hour. They had hardware coming in and it took them a long time to process it. I brought in easy-to-use reporting systems, which they could check the inventory coming in and approve it in less than an hour using barcodes. 

The barcode would send the information to the ERP system in a way that was easy for it to receive. However, the process was very slow. We added a few things, and the operation was doing better. If you use it properly, you can improve your business services immensely.

The cost of IBM Cognos it's more or less the same as most of the other solutions on the market. They're very competitive with the rest of the market and it is not the most expensive product.

I have evaluated other solutions.

I rate IBM Cognos a nine out of ten.

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.

• The ability to burst. It allows us to control the prompting activity and automate monthly reporting to our end users as we mass distribute to almost 900 end users.
• The GUI design interface is intuitive.

• We are able to rapidly communicate financial reporting and statements for reconciliation purposes.
• People are able to self serve with the provided authoring tools.

• The visualization tools have greatly improved but the active reports still need help.
• The build process of linking the variables can be a bit complex, especially for newbies.
• The ability to secure on the downloaded dataset that feeds the active report is prohibitive of its widespread use.

We have used the solution for seven years.

I would rate the technical support at about 5/10. We continue to struggle with IBM provided first or second time correct responses to cases we have open. Cases can drag on for months before resolution.

I am not aware of any previous solutions.

The setup was complex. We built scripts to create and configure at a redundant server level.

The prodict is expensive.

We evaluated Oracle OBIEE and Jaspersoft.

Investigate the cloud option for savings in maintenance and patching.

It is used for customized reports. It is the only tool supported by our IT group for user reports.

Customized reports are valuable because you can probably create any report you could imagine with it. It has features we are constantly learning how to use. It does allow the users to pull their own data, provided they are given a good framework/datasource that has been created with the options they need to use.

Currently, we just use it for user-requested reports. It has more features that, if we had the manpower, we could better set up the tool so users could do their own reporting. IT here are just getting around to letting users do their own reporting.

More flexibility for joining data sources within reports would be nice. It seems to be a feature IBM is slowly developing.

We have several framework/packages created. For example, we have one for sales, one for shipping, one for manufacturing, etc. You go to create a report in sales, but the one table that you need is defined in the manufacturing package. You can’t join the two packages in Cognos. Someone has to create the table on the sales package in Framework; then, it can be used in the report.

I have used it for three years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

We purchase support from a vendor because support from IBM is more complicated and seems to take longer. Our vendor knows us and can respond faster.

My company was using this software at least 10 years prior to me joining.

I wasn’t at my company for initial setup. We have consultants do the upgrades, because they do tend to be complex and we are short on manpower.

It is very expensive… You have to determine if the complexity of software you are getting is worth the price you are paying; how many bells and whistles do you need for what price. And if you don’t have the manpower to implement all the features, is it worth the cost?

I wasn’t at my company when they chose it, but I think it might be beneficial to re-evaluate the options.

Make sure you realize the scope of the product. It is not easily maintained by one or two people. It involves more than just Cognos for report writing; you also need to use Framework to create the data models/packages to use with it. I have done IT for 30 years; it is one of the more complex report writing tools I have used.

Also, make sure you are in it for the long haul with the costs that are associated with maintaining the software.

• Scheduling options
• Bursting (each staff member gets feedback regarding their own duty shifts): We might have hundreds of report recipients who need to have their own data (and only their own data). Doing similar work manually would take very long time, or could be impossible. I guess Cognos Burst was originally designed for large sales organisations, having a need to send sales figures for certain sales reps. For example: sales rep in Asia needs his/her figures (Asia), Europe rep European figures, etc. This functionality can be used for, e.g., staff performance, as long as the data can be joined with staff IDs. In other words, with Cognos Burst, we are able to provide personalised reporting / analytics, without manual work.
• Possibility to save report output history to the Cognos portal
• Possibility to use the same report object for various outputs (e-mail, Cognos workspace = dashboard, screens)

It results in less manual work, process performance improvement and improved real-time data availability.

It is also possible to check the report utilisation via Cognos audit reports.

The tool is complex, and I would not recommend it to small companies, because you need to have expertise for Framework Model development, access rights issues, licensing, etc.

New functions, e.g., external data import, do not work as smoothly as they should. New visualisations using RAVE take a long time.

Unfortunately statistics are not available for Cognos 10.2 (as in 10.1), and that has been a disappointment, when Lean Six Sigma-type calculations are done.

Additionally, even after four years of using Cognos, it is sometimes difficult to understand how the tool works, e.g., which calculations are processed locally, etc.

I have used Cognos 10.2 for one year and Cognos 8.4 for three years.

We encountered stability issues, but most likely related to our network and AD issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

From IBM, technical support is OK; other domestic service providers also work OK, but their hourly rates are high!

Finnair has been using IBM tools for a long time, but I personally have used other SQL tools.

Our IT department has taken care of this, thus I do not know.

If you need to send scheduled reports to third parties, you need to have a PVU server.

We have had PoCs regarding QlikView, SAS Visual Statistics, Tableau, etc.

Appropriate data modelling is a must, if you want to increase self-service.

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.