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IBM Cognos Analytics

IBM Cognos Analytics

What Is IBM Cognos Analytics?

Unlock the full potential of your data with AI-powered automation and insights in Cognos Analytics. The natural language AI assistant is always available–describe the data you need and let Cognos Analytics build stunning data visualizations for you. Describe a question or a hypothesis you want to test and let AI give you the insights you need.

Transform your business team into power users so your data analysts can focus on finding deeper insights. Move to the new generation of BI with AI capabilities that not only bring an accurate, trusted and complete picture of your business, but forecast what’s coming in the future, predict outcomes and explain why they may happen.

Who Uses IBM Cognos Analytics?

All enterprise organizations, from small to medium to large.

IBM Cognos Analytics Software - 1
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Reviews of IBM Cognos Analytics

Average score

Overall
4.2
Ease of Use
3.8
Customer Service
3.8
Features
4.2
Value for Money
3.9

Reviews by company size (employees)

  • <50
  • 51-200
  • 201-1,000
  • >1,001
Nicolas
Nicolas
Financial Analyst in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Financial Services, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Robust BI tool

5.0 3 years ago

Comments: It provides a set of highly flexible and customizable features that help improve our analytics and positively impact our decision-making.

Pros:

It allows you to connect the data thrown by different sources and create personalized reports that you can share in real time. It allows planning operations based on pre-established rules to model the entire business process and obtain the best results on the implemented strategies.

Cons:

Its license has a high cost compared to similar platforms. It has a steep learning curve and its user interface has a lot of room for improvement.

Vlad
Vlad
Project Manager / Solutions Architect in Canada
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Powerful, Reliable, Expensive

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: I've been working with IBM Cognos since version 8.4
I like this product and see how IBM is improving it.

Pros:

It's been a long on the market. It's offered by IBM It has a great integration with many databases

Cons:

New version (CA 11) has some inconvenient UI changes (new side panel which does not allow to easily navigate and see all properties) Many things need to be done manually instead of integrating as best practices (security, deployments, testing, version control, etc.) New studios are not that intuitive / transparent

Justin
Justin
Director of Enrollment Systems and Data in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Higher Education, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Used to be good, showing age

2.0 6 years ago

Comments: General business intelligence tool that is showing its age and needs to be geared more for agile. Not a great solution for small user numbers or more towards hardcore analyst/data scientist.

Pros:

The latest versions have improved the report writer experience by consolidating a few of the modules. Generally robust at connecting to single data sources.

Cons:

Steep learning curve for writing reports and setting up Framework Manager packaging is way too time consuming. The end user interface got more complicated and less easy to use in their attempt for more flashiness. The latest versions have been extremely buggy. Data blending and quick turnarounds are not its strong point.

Gerson
Gerson
IT Consultant in El Salvador
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

A great solution for your financial planning

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: Take your time and implement it right and the rewards will be very good.

Pros:

It has integration with with other IBM products like business intelligence. The excel functionality is great for finances. The product to meet our needs perfectly for all our needs.

Cons:

Creating reports is overwhelming at the beginning but if you dedicate time and resources there will be the face of your deployment.

Leon
SENIOR BI ARCHITECT AND ADMINISTRATION LEAD
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

Cognos is sophisticated BI application for large enterprises

4.0 9 years ago

Comments: Cognos is one of 2 major Business Intelligence tools on the market. If it is implemented correctly, it could provide complete web-based business solution based on the data analysis. It is a platform which allowing to deliver mission critical analytics to the business including but not limited to Enterprise reporting, Planning & Forecast, OLAP cubes technology, etc.

Pros:

- The application designed to enable business users with limited technical knowledge to extract data, analyze it and make business decision based on the analysis; - It could be used within relational or multidimensional data sources; - It is included a mobile version allowing users to access a complete version of Cognos from mobile devices;

Cons:

- very sensitive in implementation; - requiring significant resources in order to maintain and support; - too expensive for mid-size companies;

VIKAS
VIKAS
Software Engineer in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Services, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

IBM Cognos Analytics Review

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: It is AI driven, improves the business outcomes.It enhances decision making.Overall it improves business agility.

Pros:

The best thing is "Quality reports can be run at any time and by any representative with a substantial log-in " at IBM Cognos Analytics.The AI enabled exploration and dashboard capabilities are easy to use and exceed expectations

Cons:

It is not simple to use. User has to get the formal training to utilise it to maximum extent. Report pulling is not that much fast. It take quite some time to load and display.

Hilary
Hilary
Business Systems Analyst in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Banking, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Cognos Developer

4.0 6 years ago

Pros:

Cognos is a great tool for reporting. The visuals are not awesome but there is a lot of customization you can do for reporting.

Cons:

It can be difficult to learn at first. It is not as easy to pick up as Tabeau. Googling for solutions can be tough.

Chinna
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

Cognos BI is best for large projects..

4.0 9 years ago

Comments: Using Cognos ,We can develop diff types of reports.It is suitable for big projects and it have so many new features and products like Cognos BI,Cognos Express,Cognos Tm1 aand etc..

Pros:

It is suitable for Huge data projects.

Cons:

Expensive and difficult to understand

Aniket
Aniket
Associate in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Management Consulting, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Cognos Controller

4.0 6 years ago

Pros:

The user access review is easily performed in cognos application

Cons:

The technical details are not very clear

Jeremias
Jeremias
Associate Professor in Philippines
Verified LinkedIn User
Higher Education, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Cognos Analytics in the Cloud

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: IBM Cognos Analytics offers the up-to-date version of the application that you can use immediately to your reports.

Pros:

Cognos Analytics on Cloud removes the expensive and tedious process of installation Cognos Analytics on-premise server.

Cons:

You must cope with the latest version of the software. The lesson materials that you are using in the past may be different in terms of interface offered by the application.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

Enterprise Reporting and Analytics Tool

4.0 4 years ago

Comments: It has been a solid tool for our company for last so many years. IT meets out current needs in terms of performance and capabilities. However, as we start exploring more cutting edge technologies like cloud, SAAS and Advanced Analytics, we see the tool is not in the top 3.

Pros:

Well established took with huge user base and support. Being IBMs main BI tool, it comes with a lot of Support and Knowledge Base. There are tons of supporting products for Advanced Analytics, Visualization and AI/ML which makes the tool both powerful and versatile. It fits into both departmental BI as well as for Enterprise wide reporting.

Cons:

IBM should increase the support the provide for their products. It is difficult to get quick help from IBM.Self service features of the tool and not as easy as other contemporary tools like Tableau and Qlikview. IBM has catching up to do in this area. Also cloud based SAAS is not yet advanced for COGNOS.

Elaine
Elaine
Analyst in US
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great capabilities, but really difficult to use practically.

4.0 7 years ago

Pros:

Cognos Analytics has really great capabilities. There is so much that you can do with the framework if you know what you're doing. Good security features. Good for enterprise level reporting.

Cons:

If you're hoping this will replace a dedicated reporting team or IT team, it will not. The ease of use depends on several factors and be SURE that you have an experienced team built the framework. No support whatsoever from Cognos themselves for end users, and they take a long time to get back to us on issues. The new visualizations can be clunky, especially maps. They are unusable for detailed maps. Scheduling features slow down the system considerably.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Nonprofit Organization Management, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Invaluable Business Intelligence

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: Data is extremely vital to any organization and the ability to generate useful reports and dashboards on demand across multiple sources is invaluable.

Pros:

Scheduling reports, configuring prompt pages on reports for users to run a standardized report with custom filters are both fantastic features that I used hundreds of times across all reporting.

Cons:

Report building was intuitive for a power user but average users found it overwhelming. This just meant a bit more training from my department.

Michael
BI project manager
Primary/Secondary Education, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

IBM Cognos Review

4.0 8 years ago

Comments: My company has been using IBM Cognos for the past 4 years. When we purchased IBM Cognos it was the best fit for our situation. It has been a valued piece of software in our business. It has given us the ability to tie data from multiple data sources. It has given the ability for our departments to run reports that we haven't been able to in the past.

Pros:

The software is very intuitive. If you have knowledge of SQL, it is a very easy software to pick up. The Help portion of the Cognos interface is very helpful also.

Cons:

Customer Support for this product isn't the best. We have been on Cognos 10.1.1 for a while and when it came up for licensing renewal, we were charged for a newer version of Data Manger. When we inquired about this through our support contract we were going to be charged for the new software.

natasha
ITA in India
Information Technology & Services, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

valuable yet expensive

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: overall its good and it is one of the initiators in the reporting market. We are still using it and find it quite useful to fulfill our client requirements.

Pros:

you can combine multiple queries in one report to create your desired report, which can be formatted in multiple ways to meet your desired structure.

Cons:

its little bit tricky to handle. You need to understand it thoroughly which actually takes time to began working with it from scratch. Also lacks the graphics and user interface.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Medical Devices, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

IBM Cognos is a top business analytics software keeping internal reporting easy

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: It has been good, but I am still looking for the best to match my business practices

Pros:

It allows the user to create reports and customize based on user needs

Cons:

It is expensive compared to a lot of the other software out there

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Financial Services, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Intuitive BI and Reporting Software

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: Good enterprise product for business intelligence and trend analysis

Pros:

We have used IBM Cognos to create customer insights and patterns to help in our marketing and targeting campaigns. The dashboards and graphs have multiple styles and formats and can be scheduled to be generated at specific times

Cons:

Larger reports tend to be slow to generate from the report studio. Installation can also be challenging and may require purchase of vendor support

Kim
Systems Analyst in US
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Almost unworkable product

3.0 8 years ago

Comments: A reporting framework that can be used to access back end data.

Pros:

Unfortunately, there is not much to write in this section. The only possible "pro" in all cases would be the flexibility offered in the product as far as setting up the framework. Other than that, not much to like.

Cons:

User interface was slow and clumsy. The user experience was not smooth at all. There was no ease of use whatsoever. The retrieval times from the back end were even worse. We had to retrofit an existing n-tier system to use the reporting side of this software and it was a disaster. There is no way I would recommend to anyone to purchase this system.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Before leaving their Web version, they had a very good desktop application

3.0 7 years ago

Comments: with it we can visualize in a more comfortable way our information of DW and cubes

Pros:

Before leaving their Web version, they had a very good desktop application, but they discontinued it. is a powerful tool, with ease for the reporter

Cons:

it is traumatic for its administration, it depends on the active directory, which can be an advantage, but in other cases it makes it cumbersome

Jian
BI Specialist in Canada
Civic & Social Organization, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

A self-service analytics platform that is able to fulfill almost all BI needs

4.0 6 years ago

Pros:

Handles all BI products very well, including but not limited to self-served reporting structure, reports, cubes, dashboards, and scorecards. Project deployment and duplication are easy and quick.

Cons:

User administration could be very time-consuming and we use a third-party tool (which is not free of charge). Product upgrade is not simple enough and has to be planned and conducted with extra caution.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Used by team members across the world and in different markets worldwide

4.0 7 years ago

Pros:

standard reports are great to pull from the system and tbhe user interface allows us to easily create new reports

Cons:

file size get pretty large due to the data and the other info it needs to pull and regenerate charts.

Terrill
Terrill
Management in US
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Best review

4.0 5 years ago

Comments: My overall experience with the software was very good and productive

Pros:

The software was very productive and have very professional support . It was very useful and fast

Cons:

The cons was pricing and overall learning curve of the software . But once the software was up and running it really was productive

Luigi
Business Intelligence Consutant in Italy
Computer Software, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

IBM Cognos 11 Analytics, the easy and reliable BI Tool

5.0 6 years ago

Pros:

Reliability, easy of use, complete set of functions, integration with other web tools, security and maintenance

Cons:

The price is not for small companies, the implementation of the whole functions always requires an expert

Sue
Operations in US
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Ok tool

3.0 7 years ago

Pros:

I had used the IBM Cognod Sales Compensation tool while working a global high tech company. It took a while to learn the system but once you figure it out then it was easy to use and configure the plans.

Cons:

The only issue I had at the time was the very long time it would take to run a calculations. Average was an hour.

Tanzeela
Associate Consultant in India
Computer Software, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

One of the most recommended Software for Dashboarding

4.0 4 years ago

Pros:

I would definitely recommend this to people who want to create effective dashboards and reports. It has user friendly interface. I is good alternative for tableau or power BI.

Cons:

It needs to upgrade a little bit to give features like Power BI