IBM Cognos Reviews

It is great for delivering self-service BI to our end users. It provides great flexibility in the types of BI output formats that can be delivered.

It has allowed end users to explore data without having to copy it into Excel first.

The upgrade process is always a challenge, as it is basically a reinstall each time.

I have used it since 2010.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support from our vendor partner is great.

We previously used Oracle Discoverer, but it reached end of life.

Initial setup was complex in the sense that there were different ways to deliver BI: relational models, DMR, and cubes. When you first start using it, it is difficult to know which is the best.

Haggle and buy near the end of IBM’s financial year.

Before choosing this product, we looked at SAP BusinessObjects, OBIEE, Pentaho, Jaspersoft and QlikView; all in 2010.

Get a good local partner or take on an experienced Cognos contractor to help get your local team up to speed and be productive.

Drill through reporting, ease of use, ease of design, and functionality.

This BI tool helped automate and centralize production reports. It provided intuitive navigation for end users. It helped to positively change the reporting landscape while addressing customer needs

It definitely needs better data visualization. I needed to couple Cognos with Tableau to provide a complete reporting environment.

2 years for Cognos BI series 10; 2 years for Series 8 and 7 years for Series 7

No, the company I worked for had a Corporate user (many end users) license which enabled license costs to be minimal.

Customer Service: I did not work directly with Cognos support.Technical Support: I did not work directly with Cognos support.

The IT group in my organization was responsible for the set-up. On version 8, Cognos seemed very unstable. Cognos 10 was much improved.

In house

IT group handled this aspect.

Yes. Our company had many BI tools to choose from but Cognos was the most sustainable and scale-able.

There are many BI tools out there to choose from. Cognos might be the right solution for you but this decision needs to take into consideration the size of your user group, the cost per license, the functionality needed for your reporting infrastructure, and the in-house BI knowledge of the BI tool that you choose.

Data Manager is a great ETL tool, Query Studio is a great tool for ad-hoc queries, simple but powerful. Report Studio is a bit more complicated but also very powerful for complex reports.

Dashboards and reports bring all the needed figures to our direction on a daily basis and it's available from various devices (apple, android, windows 8.)

The reporting tool can be tricky and you'll need to get used to it but it's worth the effort.

4 years

Yes, there may be compatibility issues but as long as you read the requirements and do not apply the latest Fix Pack blindly as soon as they are released, it's pretty stable.

Yes, as with many 3-tiers applications you rely on a web server, an application server and a database, so for example- a huge load of connections can bring down the app server when using LifeCycleManager, a great tool for assistance in the upgrade process.

Not so far.

Customer Service: Better, but I must say that it's not as good as my experience with Oracle's.Technical Support: Good.

I tried (very briefly) Business Object and QlikView but my company has been running Cognos since the beginning.

As usual it requires a lot of reading and it can get a bit complex since there are a lot of different technology involved (web server IIS or Apache, app server TOMCAT, java and Oracle RDBMS as the content store).

It was a mix, the vendor usually has good skills on the subject. Support can be sometimes be disappointing.

Yes, we did look at Microstrategy, Qlikview and Oracle BI which may have been good choices if we started from scratch but there was no point in changing the tool we were already using.

You need the resources and the budget but it's a great set of tools that can bring value to your business.

This is an all-in-one solution that provides reporting for a lot of different reports and visualizations. It provides one tool that works for 90% of situations.

Cognos has a lot of tools such as:

• The Report Studio that is aimed at professional report writers.
• The Query Studio that is aimed at business users.
• The Event Studio that is used to check conditions before triggering an action.
• The PowerPlay transformer to build cubes.
• The Analysis Studio to report against cubes and others such as planning.

So it covers a lot of the areas that are required for reporting. As far as visualization is concerned, Cognos is trying to keep up with the others. Cognos version 11 has a lot of new charts but still not as good as the other tools that are dedicated for visualization like Tableau, Spotfire etc.

This product has helped to provide basic reporting for reducing manual work as well as some dashboard visualizations for executives to see what's going on in one glance.

Performance and visualizations are aspects which need to be improved. Cognos doesn't have all the charts that are available in the other tools such as Tableau, Spotfire etc. Cognos is trying to keep up with the others and Cognos version 11 has a lot of new charts but still it has a lot of room for improvement.

Cognos charts are not as fast as those of the other tools, even with DQM (dynamic query mode). I think these are the two main reasons why a lot of companies are using Tableau/OBI/ Spotfire even when they have Cognos.

I have used this solution for eleven years.

Cognos is very stable, after tweaking server settings.

Cognos has different licensing models. PVU license limits CPU and there is need to add that for more users.

It's a mix. Some support agents are very good while some don't have a clue of what's going on.

We did not use any other solution.

The initial setup is very straightforward. The basic installation is very easy and you can start reporting.

Make sure to assess the number of concurrent users and the type of users, i.e., studio vs viewers. Also, there is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties.

This product is easy to install and you can start reporting off. However, it needs a lot of tweaking according to the different setups and also has a lot of components that need different skill sets.

It's all consolidated in one solution, so it doesn't have a few things that the other small tools do better.

Cognos is easy to learn and I see a lot of the new consultants in this field, more than in any other BI tool. However, becoming an expert takes a lot of time.

The use of the dimensional and relational data model for drill-down, drill-up and drill-through: This is how you can switch between analysis on a high-level, aggregated data and detailed data.

I have been a business intelligence and analytics consultant for 15 years and I have always provided value to my customers.

The improvement to make is for BI to be extended into analytics; more Watson technology in BI. Watson from IBM is for more predictive and prescriptive analysis (big data) and Cognos BI is for more descriptive (BI). When IBM brings the Watson technique into BI, you will have one platform for reporting over past, present and future.

We have been using the solution for 15 years.

We have never encountered any stability issues.

We have never encountered any scalability issues.

Over the last 10 years, I have never needed to use the customer support.

Over these 15 years, I have worked with Oracle BI, Microsoft BI, Qlik and several other tools. Beside Cognos, none were compliant enough with the needs of my customers.

Starting with Cognos wasn't easy before the most recent version 11, Cognos Analytics.

Use one of the best BI tools, which Cognos is.

I have rolled into it by starting BI within Cognos.

First look at what you need, before buying a BI tool and implementing it.

• I love the new user interface! Finally, Cognos BI has a new face.
• New handling of JavaScript.
• Story board.
• Dashboarding with combined shared and local data.
• Backwards compatibility.

Our client was very unhappy with the v10 and earlier UX. They wanted something "sexy". Our UX team came up with a very pleasing design mock-up of the dashboards using Marvel (www.marvelapp.com/1c19h7d). I despaired that it couldn't be done in v10.2.2. However, we got v11.0.4 installed, and amazingly I was able to get very close to the "sexy" UX the client wanted! This is being done using the reports functionality of Cognos Analytics (Report Studio + Workspace Advanced + Analytics Studio + Query Studio all in one, but with a better UX).

Also, the tool UX is more more easily customised in this version.

IBM has stated that Cognos Analytics 11 will include RAVE2/D3 charting support by the end of the year. I am using v11.0.4 and it is not included. V11.0.4 is the latest release TMK.

IBM has stated that Cognos Analytics 11 will include a mapping engine (like esri) by the end of the year. I am using v11.0.4 and it is not included. V11.0.4 is the latest release TMK.

I ported a complex dashboard built in Report Studio v10.2.2 into the v11.0.04 environment. After the embedded HTML items were removed so that Full Interactive Mode could be used, and replacing that HTML functionality with external JavaScript (via Custom Controls), the same report runs slightly slower. Also, after spending a day working in the editor on a report, the UI gets slower and slower. I either have to log off close the browser, then open a new browser and log on again to restore the start of day performance, or restart the BI service to achieve the same result. I was using Firefox 49. I’m now on 45 ESR but haven’t don’t enough work yet to see if this makes a difference.

I have hidden objects (block type “none”) on the page. To edit these I need to set the “show hidden objects” on in the options. This setting sometimes sticks between editing sessions, sometimes not. I opened two separate browsers and open a different version of the same report in each. In one the hidden objects displayed, in the other they didn’t.

I have used it for two months.

I've done three installs to date (two alone and one where I supported):

• Stand-alone on a Windows machine - easiest install ever!
• Concurrent install with C10.2.2 on a Windows machine - smooth with little confusion except around SSO and WebDAV. Used port 9305 as 9300 is for 10.2.2 install.
• Upgrade on a Linux machine - quick and painless.

I have encountered stability issues. I was able to crash the browser a couple of times (Firefox, recent version). I've tested the UI with Firefox (49 & ESR 45), MS 11, Chrome, and Edge (not supported), and all appear to work fine.

The longer I work on a report through the day, the slower the system responds.

Customer Service:

Customer service is very good. Given that support is coming from Canada and I'm in New Zealand, a 16 hours time difference, I've usually had a response by the next morning.

Technical Support:

The old Cognos Help Knowledgebase (pre-Rob Ash) was brilliant. The next version was so so. The move to IBM's DeveloperWorks means I struggle to find the information I need now.

We needed to connect to a PI Historian database but IBMCognos BI/CA does not certify the JDBC (Linux) driver. IBM said they would not provide a fix to support the PI drivers. The workaround is now to get PI data via a web service using IBM Integration Bus into a DB2 table, then read the data from there.

I previously used CBI10.2.2; upgraded to CA11.0.4 to get a better UX.

Initial setup was 99% straightforward; only complex in getting ports opened by a third party, implementing SSO, and WebDAV configuration.

An in-house team implemented it.

Cognos BI or Cognos Analytics comes bundled with many IBM solutions now. E.g, PMQ, Maximo. Check if your company has this supporting program license first before purchasing a new license. BUT, a bundled license is limited, so check the wording carefully.

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

If you go with Cognos Analytics, install at least version 11.0.4. It has backwards capability for old reports and dashboards, and includes the new JavaScript API.

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

Customer Service:

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

Technical Support:

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.