IBM Cognos Reviews

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.

I am an IT project manager. We take the commercial data of one of our operators and use this information traffic as our ticketing service. These are very traditional and static needs that are being deployed.

We are able to automate annual reports.

We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time.

it avoids wasting time in repetitive actions such as monthly, quarterly and annual activity reports

I would like for the platform to become more standard. If we make development on our report and our dashboard, it will not be used in another solution. That means there is no portability for the developers.

It would also be nice to be able to export the dashboard. Some dashboards can be deployed and seen by everyone. But the problem is, I have to go through the Cognos server to define each user. There is no flexibility to do it as a report that can be published as a web report or something like that for many users.

I think the solution is stable.

We utilized an IBM expert for support.

Implementation was done by an expert, we did not have any issues with the setup.

It is pretty expensive.

We looked at Tableau. This tool is fast and easy to use because it uses the desktop. Tableau is better for the advanced users in my opinion.

I think that Cognos is very efficient for the matured enterprise.

I also believe that the functions for the BI are not mature yet. I would advise asking for assistance whenever implementing a new function so that they can properly handle the configuration, adjustment, and tuning of the servers which will make it easy on you as the end user.

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.

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. 

We analyze data from their marketing campaigns, and social networks in order to determine which campaigns are more effective, and which channels are producing the best results.

It's quite easy to use.  

The tool has a group of algorithms that allows you to find links rapidly.

It is also very easy to create link charts and analytics quickly.

This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats. We don't have any kind of issues with this product.

The online documentation is good, but it could be better. If the documentation could provide more examples, it would be nice.

It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users.

I have been using this solution for a couple of months.

We are using the Cognos Analytics version.

It's a stable solution. It's very strong. 

With Software Assessment Services, you can forget about the infrastructure. The servers and everything that is related to the typical deployment of the tool is easy because it's on the IBM Cloud.

Your focus your attention on using it instead of the technical side of things.

It is too soon for me to say anything about the scalability, but my impression is that it doesn't matter the amount of data you need to analyze the tool. The background has the infrastructure and the features that allow you to grow according to what you need.

Currently, we have a couple of users but will have five or six more next month. 

The technical support is fast. 

You have access to a knowledge base where you can look for the issue. If you cannot find it, you can contact IBM support and you will get an answer very quickly.

We were working with Power BI on a local deployment, but unfortunately, it suddenly presented some issues. We tried to re-install it but were not successful. To this day, we still don't know why this happened. 

We quickly changed to IBM Cognos and is quite good.

We were also working with Tableau. It's also a local installation. It's very good, very powerful, and has a lot of features you can use to analyze the data. Cognos is easier to use.

The initial setup was extremely easy.

You log in from your account or create an account and instantly you have access to a 30-day trial or you can test the tool, and create exercises to determine if it is good for you. Once complete you can decide if you want to pay monthly or you can dismiss the tool.

In our case, the only thing that we needed to do was to upload the data, which took a couple of hours.

We don't require any staff to maintain this solution.

I don't have this information, it is handled by our finance department. 

It is my understanding that the cost is very low. It's not very expensive.

It's a good idea to take a course online to learn how it works before you start.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for reporting.

The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. 

We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis.

It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.

We implemented it on the web. Before that, there was a separate request that needed to be raised for a report to be issued. We needed to fetch items and it took time. Now, according to their requirement, users can schedule their own reports. They get a URL they can access. They have a GUI on the Netcool page and they can access the data using this Cognos report. 

The solution is pretty easy to install. The documentation on offer is very good and it's very instructive.

The user interface is very nice. IBM Netcool interface is the same, and we can implement the same Netcool web GUI on a web page. Within the Netcool servers, we can integrate this tool to give users access to the environment.

The integration and configuration capabilities are very good.

The solution is very simple while also being quite robust and scalable. 

As we get new requirements, we need to see if they fit into Cognos. As of right now, it fits our needs, however, that can change.

We've had issues in the past that the solution is still working to resolve.

The solution seems to slow down the servers. We're working with IBM to see if this can be resolved. 

The scalability is quite good. this type of solution is built for enterprises, and our enterprise environment is quite large. the solution handles it well. It can scale.

Technical support is a 10 out of 10. IBM is always available when we raise a PMR with them. Even on Level 2 or Level 3 issues, they will come into the picture and they are used to researching if any issue comes their way. They'll work to replicate the issue in their lab environment and they'll give a resolution. That is very good and helpful for us, for our team. We are extremely satisfied with their level of support. 

We did use other reporting in the past, however, it was not as good or as easily scheduled as this product.

The solution is very easy to implement. It's not overly complex or difficult. The documentation is good from IBM. IBM tried to create not too much complexity in terms of integration and configuration. We can usually implement using the IBM docs. It's not a problem.

I can't speak to the direct pricing, although it is my understanding that it is high. That said, the solution holds great value.

We are customers and partners.

Currently, we are also using AIOps and IBM Watson also, which is an artificial intelligence tool that is also very easy.

We trust IBM and its platforms. They've optimized for monitoring very well. Their support is also excellent.

I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. So far, it's been a great solution for us. We're quite happy with its capabilities.

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.

I use Cognos to design reports.

The storytelling feature is most valuable because it has a more explanatory approach which is really convenient for building up monthly reports with some context. 

The version I last worked on "IBM Analytics" required you to build your own queries and reports for statistical reasons, which should be out of the box rather than requiring users to build them. A nice dashboard showing uptime, runtime per report/user/ query ... usage per report ... for direct publication would be nice to promote the tool at the end users without investing a lot of time in it as an administrator

I've worked with this solution for about 15 years.

Cognos is stable, I've never experienced issues with its stability.

The support isn't bad, but the user community is quite small to discuss certain topics, especially in comparison to those of competitors like Microsoft Power BI.

I've also used Qlik Sense, but I prefer Cognos for the scalability and data structuring on the backend. In the frameworks, you have better data management than in Qlik, which requires you to build independent data models.

The initial setup is quite easy and has improved from previous versions.

I would advise those thinking of implementing Cognos to look at their customers' requests. If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense. I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.