IBM Cognos Reviews and Pricing

Bob Edis

Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Aug 24, 2015

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It offers good back end delivery and end user device options, but it needs more graphic options and an updated UI.

What is most valuable?

Data modeling
Back end delivery options
End user device options
Report designer
Scalability

How has it helped my organization?

There've been no improvements since implementation.

What needs improvement?

More graphic options
Its UI needs to be more 21st century

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for 10 years in various versions.

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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

It's poor.

Technical Support:

It's fair.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We used an IBM partner who were good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Look at the TCO not just the sticker price.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No other options evaluated.

What other advice do I have?

Read
Try
Ask
Repeat

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. We're an IBM partner.

it_user250983

Bi Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 14, 2015

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Cognos is the most stable BI environment, but it gets far too complex for advanced setup.

What is most valuable?

There are too many features I like in Cognos to mention, but the most valuable one is a tool has a new set of features called Cognos Insight. It need a separate article to talk about.

How has it helped my organization?

As a consultant, I have seen many cases where Cognos has helped organizations to increase business performance, and support managers in decision making.

What needs improvement?

The main improvement required is to help users with the full vision about the product according to their need. Also, the scale of the stuff on their website that is hidden needs to be changed. They also a need technical person who is very interested in the product, and understands it. The technical stuff is improving too fast, and the IBM lab is working too hard.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for more than five years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

I can't remember any issues I have faced that I have not been able to resolve through their website.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I believe that Cognos is the most stable BI environment.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Cognos has the most scalable options in the market. It has options for all, from personal users, to the most complex enterprise organizations.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Customer service is fair compared with the abilities and size of the product.

Technical Support:

I would rate it as 7/10 as it is rare to find unknown issues that have no resolution, but if you find one, or you did something wrong, and try to get help it will take some time.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I used Microsoft BI and I switch to Cognos when I found that I wasn't able to satisfy some customers needs.

How was the initial setup?

The setup now is straightforward. The complexity decreased by time until it reached a very good level, but it gets far too complex for advanced setup.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at Microsoft BI.

What other advice do I have?

Before you start, request advice so you can select the most suitable option for you. You should do this because there are too many options in this product and you may pay for features that you will never use.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partners

it_user32034Works at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Aug 21, 2015

Can not agree more with you review.

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it_user221220

Analyst in XBRL Projects at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Apr 22, 2015

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Good product with bad performance. We had licenses for all the features but users almost exclusively used the molap cube file.

What is most valuable?

The molap cube file is valuable.

How has it helped my organization?

We shared the molap cube file, which means can do analyses on their desktop.

What needs improvement?

Cognos is a good product with bad performance. We had licenses for all the features but users almost exclusively used the molap cube file.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for 12 years, since v7.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

It has poor integration with other IBM products. In v7 (not in the IBM family), I overrode their upfront UI to integrate it into a websphere portal. In earlier versions, I still find these kinds of problems.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Almost all the time, we have a problem with Cognos stability and even our maintenance vendor can’t do anything to resolve it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I think Cognos have problem with their dispatcher performance. In v7, I overrode their impromptu options, to catch performance requirement, while in v8, again, I had to override their dispatcher management with our code. Finally, in v10, we didn’t make any changes to improve Cognos, and now our users leave it.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

It's good.

Technical Support:

We are more expert than they are.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used Infobeacon and now we are using Cognos and Microsoft BI. We are currently looking for a better product and are evaluating Tableau.

How was the initial setup?

In 2003 It was very complex, and we must survive by ourselves because we can’t find any technical support for us.

What about the implementation team?

We always implemented it through a vendor, but until now, we are more expert than they are.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Microstrategy as another option.

What other advice do I have?

Quality of data, flexibility and the performance of the tool(s) are the critical aspects of BI. Test the critical aspects by doing a proof of concept using a huge amount of data.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user195735System Analyst , Business Intelligence at a tech services company

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Sep 28, 2016

I have been working on IBM Cognos for over 8 years from the earlier versions to the most latest.This product has evolved a lot over time and has always been in pace with the business needs and data reporting requirements which have changed tremendously over the years.IBM Cognos is far more mature product than most of the competitors , but keep in minds its expensive.The product is now moving more towards self serve analytics and predictive analytics.

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it_user191655

BI (Cognos) Developer at a pharma/biotech company with 501-1,000 employees

Feb 9, 2015

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Report Studio is a valuable feature but would be better with the ability to audit the SQL

What is most valuable?

Jobs
Schedules
Auditing
Report Studio

How has it helped my organization?

Cognos gives a consistent single source answer for many users to retrieve easily. It allows for prompted value, so many questions can be answered.

What needs improvement?

Auditing the SQL to determine if there are any particularly slow points. Also allowing jobs to send email notification when complete with links to all the reports within the email.

For how long have I used the solution?

Seven years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

There are always some errors, but typically user errors.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is pretty stable, but bad queries can cause problems.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

6/10 as they usually get back quickly but rarely have a solution.

Technical Support:

6/10

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I used MicroStrategy before, but I changed jobs because Cognos is a bigger company and would have more job opportunities.

How was the initial setup?

It is pretty straightforward. It doesn't take an expert to set up, but consultants will try to make it seem more complex than it is.

What about the implementation team?

We used a vendor team. They talked a good game, but I would rate them at a 6/10.

What was our ROI?

Don't know, but it's not cheap.

What other advice do I have?

It's not as good a MicroStrategy for data analysis, but better for static reporting.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user164874Practice Leader

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May 4, 2015

If you want to understand the performance of a single report or profile a set of reports then you need to use Cognos Performance Management Analysis (PMA). This is packaged with the Business Patterns offering and it used to be available on AnalyticsZone, but I don't see it there any more. No idea why.

Installation on top of SQL Server / Oracle instead of DB2 BLU might require assistance from IBM. They had to help us the first time. Once you understand the capabilities of this free utility it is absolutely amazing. It describes what is going on at a finer level of detail that anyone could want.

In summary. PMA is not trivial to configure but it is incredibly powerful at analyzing EXACTLY what is going on and why.

it_user185781

Solution Architect with 51-200 employees

Jan 26, 2015

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A good mix of abilities for reporting but ability to manage source code & environment deployment needs work

What is most valuable?

Good mix of abilities for reporting for both technical and non-technical users.

How has it helped my organization?

Dashboarding presentations of key metrics.

What needs improvement?

Ability to easily manage source code and environment deployment
Pricing model is frequently changing and hard to manage
Maintenance fees were based on a percentage of the base cost, not the discounted price we paid which was a surprise the first year

For how long have I used the solution?

Five years - Cognos BI 8 and 10

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Because the configuration options are wide, there are typically minor issues with an installation.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Not once it is configured correctly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

6 out of 10.

Technical Support:

6 out of 10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previous solution was built on an old technology and updates continue to be built over the same engine rather than an updated technology. Caused issues with programming.

How was the initial setup?

Complex, many options and variations available which is both good and bad.

What about the implementation team?

Through a vendor. Very good expertise.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Brief evaluation of other products, selection was based on discounted pricing at year end and high rating from Gartner.

What other advice do I have?

If you don't have staff with previous experience in this product, it's worth engaging a partner you help you with installation and configuration options, training and early implementation.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user164874Practice Leader

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May 4, 2015

Regarding source code and environment management, there are some good thirty party add-on tools out there that solve this problem, and other problems such as large scale fine-grained security management.

Check out
MetaManager from Avnet Brightstar Partners (BSP)
CI/PI and other offerings from Motio
SecurityStudio from FirstQuarter
AuditProcessor from Genware Computer Systems
Varios Visn products from Envisn

I have used some but not all of these products.

it_user174621

Cognos Consultant at a insurance company with 51-200 employees

Jan 15, 2015

The Dashboards feature is almost a challenge to other BI tools

In the market, there are new cutting edge technologies that analyze data in a better way. Cognos is a tool where we can view the data in a more understanding way. In the new version, Cognos 10.2.1, there are new features to analyze the data, and this enables you to take better business decisions.

Active reports are available to see the data offline and can be integrated to view the report outputs on an iPhone as well in an animated feature.
Visualization feature is in the new version, 10.2.1, and can be compared with other BI tools such as Tibco, Spotfire, and Tabulae.
Dashboards feature is almost a challenge to other BI tools to show the reports in the same way, i.e. a summary analysis.
Other reporting options are almost complete compared to the other BI tools and offers more sophisticated performing.

We can say that it’s a very successful BI tool and it has gained acceptance with business users and hopefully will be in the market for a long time.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user176946

BI Architect at a wellness & fitness company with 501-1,000 employees

Dec 31, 2014

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Initial setup can be straightforward but expertise is needed to fully benefit from the capabilities of Cognos.

What is most valuable?

Report Studio (ability to make pixel perfect reports and interactive dashboards)
Framework Manager (the layer between the database and the user)

How has it helped my organization?

With Cognos we are able to present and analyze the KPI's and outcomes our hospital needs to take decisions.

What needs improvement?

Adding workflow functions to the reports could close the PDCA cycle
Speed of report-execution.

For how long have I used the solution?

7 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Moderate,.

Technical Support:

Good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No previous solution used.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup can be straightforward but expertise is needed to fully benefit from the capabilities of Cognos.

What about the implementation team?

One day was needed to implement the product, and this was done by an experienced consultant from the vendor.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No other solutions were evaluated.

What other advice do I have?

Be willing to build up in-house knowledge of Cognos.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user174690

BI Senior Consultant at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Dec 23, 2014

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Framework Manager is the best Metadata Modeling Tool but we have to restart the mobile server everyday

What is most valuable?

Framework Manager.

How has it helped my organization?

IBM Cognos is a Decision Supports Tool that draws an organization's picture and gives you a general scene overview of your organization.

For how long have I used the solution?

4 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Yes, Report Studio's charts are not flexible size so you have to give constant size to chart.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Yes, It was the IBM Cognos mobile application server performance issue. We have to restart everyday.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No I did not.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

In Turkey, IBM Customer Service and Sales strategy is very bad. Their level of customer service quality is very very low.

Technical Support:

Their technical support method is wrong because they only give technical support to partners that are consultant firms . The partners' priority is money so it reduces the quality of service.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Now, my organization is switching IBM Cognos to OBIEE because of IBM Approaches.

IBM Turkey signed a project that is Legal Reporting with my organization but they could not finish the project. However they wanted to take their money out of the project so my organization decided to never use IBM's products.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is a complex one that needs an administrator.

What about the implementation team?

Both of them according to the project. We rated their level of expertise with POC.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We compared products with Gartner Reports.

What other advice do I have?

Framework Manager is the best Metadata Modeling Tool and also Report Studio.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user175269Owner at a tech services company

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Dec 23, 2014

I meant hard-to-manage in the sense of the need to develop a multitude of cubes in order to perform analysis. When using cubes for analysis I use an analogy to my time in the Army when directed to a location that was off the map sheet (pre-GPS). When that happens, it's back to the IT shop to have a new cube created. This is much more minor issue with MicroStrategy and its ROLAP architecture. Combine that with MicroStrategy's single metadata, focus on analytical empowerment of the user (rather than dedicated designers), create once, use anywhere (desktop, web, mobile) with true browser-based development and editing, and MicroStrategy is a much better analytical environment. I've been a life-long information analyst with experience in MIS/DSS/EIS and for nearly 20 years in BI environments so I'm pretty familiar with many tools and their pros and cons.

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