IBM Cognos Analytics for IBM Cloud Pak for Data

My main use case for IBM Cognos  is that this software has great benefits, especially for the BI and data mining aspects, all focused on the decision-making aspect within our organization.

In my organization, we use IBM Cognos Analytics  for decision-making, particularly for data reporting, tracking personnel, supply chain, timeline, and many more.

IBM Cognos Analytics has positively impacted my organization by reducing report formulation time by 60%, especially for templated recurring reports such as the monthly sales report. The improved decision-making speed has been enhanced with IBM Cognos self-service dashboard and AI-driven data exploration, while automated distribution and uptime, scheduled report delivery, and bursting have eliminated various manual emailing and delays.

The improved decision-making speed allows us to know if our business is doing well and how our customers are relating to our products. This enables us to determine which products are moving better and which are not performing as well, allowing us to focus more energy and resources on improving the products for better market value.

IBM Cognos makes it simple to create visually appealing products, and we are able to run about 1,000 reports on a daily basis while another 1,000 are run through the scheduler built into IBM Cognos Analytics. It offers triggering through the scheduler, which we use to confirm the completion of other processes needed to be available before the job is scheduled to run, allowing us to make data-driven decisions easily.

Some of the best features that IBM Cognos offers are enterprise reporting, which enables us to create, customize, and run reports on sales trends, consumer sentiment, and many more; dashboard creation; and data exploration and analysis. We are able to use the drag and drop feature to create ad-hoc visualizations. Additionally, I find the AI-powered natural language query feature for data analysis and dashboard input to be very useful for a non-technical person to put queries around the spreadsheets data to get a quick answer. Building insights for accurate decision-making has been great. Moreover, we can package reports with data-backed insights for stakeholders in PDF and Excel format to support business ad-hoc cases, forecasting, and strategic recommendations on relevant tasks.

Of all those features, the visual graphs, predictive analytics, and data cleansing feature makes the biggest difference for my team.

IBM Cognos is deployed in my organization using a hybrid cloud setup with Amazon Web Services  as our cloud provider.

I believe IBM Cognos can be improved by addressing its limited real-time data connectivity, as well as enhancing the endpoint experience and mobility, which currently is not satisfactory due to limited data blending.

Although IBM Cognos supports mobile functionality, the experience can be improved, as the app is not fully responsive or fluid. Features such as interactive filtering and dashboard creation are not user-friendly on a small screen. It would be beneficial if the mobile user experience were improved with better touch-friendly controls and offline viewing options.

I have been using IBM Cognos for the past 10 years.

In my experience, IBM Cognos is stable, as I have not experienced any downtime or lagging issues.

IBM Cognos can handle my organization's growth and increasing data needs efficiently.

The customer support has been proactive, solution-oriented, and helpful whenever I have needed to reach out.

I previously used Microsoft Power BI  before switching to IBM Cognos.

I switched from Microsoft Power BI  to IBM Cognos primarily because IBM Cognos Analytics is robust in terms of reporting, governance, and scheduling, while Power BI excels in use, interactivity, and visuals. IBM Cognos Analytics has an edge over Power BI for enterprise-grade structured reporting needs, which is why we made the switch.

I have seen a return on investment through improved decision making, as automated distribution and uptime, along with scheduled report delivery and bursting, have eliminated various manual emailing and delays, thereby saving time and cost.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is positive, as the price is relatively competitive and affordable. Although there may be some complexity during setup, the support is always available to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Before choosing IBM Cognos, I evaluated other options, including SAP Business Objects  Business Intelligence .

IBM Cognos is well suited for financial reporting, handling complex, pixel-perfect, multi-page reports with scheduled delivery to stakeholders, such as sales reports by region on a quarterly basis. It can operationally create dashboards across departments and combine multiple data sources such as ERP , CRM , Excel, and many more, with filters and embedded AI insights to enable organizations to make data-driven decisions easily.

I appreciate IBM Cognos for its inbuilt AI feature, which helps uncover data patterns and forecasts, providing useful quick data-supported recommendations without heavy analysis. I would rate this product a 9 out of 10.

My main use case for IBM Cognos  is to support metrics reporting, dashboarding, and general end-user reporting requirements, and my team and I usually receive many ad-hoc requests for statistics and metrics from executive leadership. I use IBM Cognos Analytics  to deliver that reporting in a quick, efficient, and trusted manner.

In addition to my main use case, I use IBM Cognos day-to-day for reports where multiple reports are run on a daily basis as well as run through the scheduler built into IBM Cognos Analytics. It offers triggering through the scheduler which we use to confirm the completion of other processes completing the data collection needed to be available before the job is scheduled to run.

The best features IBM Cognos offers include seamless data integration, AI-powered insights, and user-friendly dashboards that really make my job easier.

The AI-powered insights help me automatically identify patterns and insights where they enhance analysis depth effortlessly, and this feature has been very instrumental in uncovering variable insights that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. When it comes to seamless data integration, I love the seamless and efficient data integration capability of IBM Cognos Analytics, where it allows us easy merging of data from various sources such as customer feedback and sales figures. The smooth integration process streamlines workflow efficiency and enhances overall data management practice. I also really love the user-friendly and intuitive dashboards where IBM Cognos Analytics enables quick creation of custom dashboards and an easy understanding of visual data presentation, allowing us to identify trends at a glance and enhance our analytical capabilities.

IBM Cognos has positively impacted my organization since implementing this tool, as it has been very helpful with a particularly strong data analysis capability that helps us in business planning. Its strong data analysis capability helps us for business planning, and the great reporting capacity helps update all the leadership management about the business in one report. Auto-scheduling and report generation is a good feature that saves a significant amount of time.

Specific outcomes that show how IBM Cognos has helped my organization include saving time, as we have been able to save forty to fifty percent of our time with its auto-scheduling and report generation functionality.

One area where IBM Cognos can be improved is that customer service sometimes is not very responsive, and I would love to see the user interface improved, especially to look somehow updated.

In addition to this, I notice that the LDAP logins give errors multiple times, although not always, and integration with Azure  login makes trouble.

I have been using IBM Cognos for nine years.

IBM Cognos is very stable.

The scalability of IBM Cognos is very good, as it has continued growing with my organization's needs, allowing us to analyze and store a significant amount of data and handle our organization's growth efficiently.

The customer support sometimes is not quick to respond to our queries, so I would love them to be proactive and responsive twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Previously, I used Microsoft Power BI .

The setup was quite straightforward, with no challenges or hiccups.

I have seen a return on investment, as I mentioned earlier about time saving and productivity gains, with a consistent governed data model that reduces the risk of errors. Reporting  ensures store managers and regional leaders and executives each receive tailored reports automatically where they are able to make data-driven decisions easily.

Before choosing IBM Cognos, I evaluated Sigma  Computing among other options.

My advice to others looking into using IBM Cognos is that it is way easier and more convenient for data visualization and integration, and the dashboard sharing function has improved our collaboration with my colleagues and my team members. I would definitely recommend IBM Cognos for its practical features and ease of use.

I have additional thoughts about IBM Cognos before we wrap up, as its speed simplifies my everyday work through data analysis and reporting, enabling me to make data-driven decisions easily. I give this product a rating of eight out of ten.