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What users say
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CHANDAR R.
TM
Tony M.
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1
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Free trial
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9995
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Per year
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Free trial
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39
/user
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Free trial
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14.99
Per month
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Free trial
Price starts from
Free
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Free trial
pavan r.
Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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I used Cognos as an analytical tool by linking our ERP (Microsoft Dynamic NAV) to it. All the financial data would be mapped & a lot of customized reports were taken out like Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). The user interface is pretty good. The CUBEs are little confusing but once you get the grip they work very well. The ability to drill down the reports to very basic level is a plus point A little tough to learn & customize. It's a little slow when dealing with a medium amount of data.
Easily integrating with most of the ERPs, very good for customizing reports, very detailed reporting
Tough to learn & not many resources available, you will get the value of the money invested in it only if you are able to get the most out of it
Robert G.
Construction, 10,001+ employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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It brings a lot of functionality all under one roof. Our team found the "visualization" a little easier in Cognos vs Power BI, but the paginated reporting better in SSRS/PBIRS. We ended up transitioning entirely from Cognos to the MS stack and the broad consensus by the team is it was an overall welcomed upgrade. We're starting to consider Tableau or Looker, but returning to Cognos isn't on our horizon.
The ability to visualize data in many way all using the same utility is beneficial so we don't have to worry about multiple deployment/support patterns. Having an in-memory OLAP option made performance less of an issue compared to hitting an on-prem database directly for everything. The ability to add custom code allows for some really creative solutions to unique business problems in reporting.
We felt the interface and functionality was a little dated - our more technical employees were fine but the more analyst-type developers preferred something "prettier"/"friendlier" like Tableau/Power BI. It also got expensive for us which was one of the two the primary reasons we transitioned. This is obviously dependent on the number of users, so consider your own environment of course.
Vlad D.
Verified reviewer
Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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I've been working with IBM Cognos since version 8.4 I like this product and see how IBM is improving it.
It's been a long on the market. It's offered by IBM It has a great integration with many databases
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
Leon P.
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Information Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees
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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.
- 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;
- very sensitive in implementation; - requiring significant resources in order to maintain and support; - too expensive for mid-size companies;
Nabeel C.
Government Administration, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Overall, if there is a company that wishes to automate it's reports and improve efficiency across their organization, Cognos is a must-have tool. There is a bit of upfront cost involved to get the reports created in Cognos but the efficiency achieved is almost unparalleled.
Cognos is an incredibly powerful reporting tool offered by IBM and it has a wonderful ability to be customized across different industries and companies. It can transform work efficiency but automating virtually any data that exists in a company's primary accounting and finance system.
Cognos is not very user-friendly and often times it can take a while for an individual working with Congos to get familiar with the functionality and the power this tool possesses. Furthermore, report writing and query studio functionality require some database knowledge so the true power of the tool is sometimes limited by these factors.
Anonymous Reviewer
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Government Administration, 201-500 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Overall it is a great product to use
Cognos Analytics is a flexible software for Standard Business Intelligence Reporting as well as for Self Service Data Visualization capability. You have the option to connect to a variety of the Data Sources as well as Multi-Dimensional Cubes. The new invention of Cognos Analytics software provides a greater flexibility for enterprise deployments and upgrades. It has the new feature of NLP (natural language processing) for predictive analytics by IBM Watson.
Too many modelling tools (Cognos FrameWork Manager, Dynamic Cube Designer, Cognos Transformer) for modelling the content. Too many studios (Report Studio, Query Studio, Analysis Studio and Event Studio) for report development. Maintainence and cost is huge
Alvaro R.
Management Consulting, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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TM1 allows you to build business models that display online results available to all authorized users of the organization.
IBM Cognos TM1 facilitates the creation of business models with the participation and contribution of users throughout the organization regardless of their physical location. TM1 is a enterprise-level platform that allows an integral, flexible, rigorous and perfect control over the users that contribute with the creation of the budget. It allows building multidimensional models that incorporate the business rules that govern the financial processes of the company.
IBM Cognos TM1 needs to train personnel to administer the platform. The construction of the models requires specialized IT staff. The cost of the licenses is for medium and large companies.
natasha s.
Information Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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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.
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.
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.
Beena A.
Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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Data Analytics, Dashboards, Complex KPI reports, Event studio objects
Very structured, Reporting features are very good and we can make use of various functions, Event studio tool is the most powerful.
I wish if natural language feature is added to Cognos. When it comes to the calculated fields we need to write functions in Cognos, but if IBM Cognos can make built in functions like Microsoft power BI then that would be awesome. High pricing is another factor.
Felix F.
Primary/Secondary Education, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for 1-2 years
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Cognos is a very effective BI tool. you can create customized reports without having a very technical background ... It can be easily integrated with several data sources in a simple and consistent way and I find the interface to extract data on demand or send scheduled reports (Report Planner) excellent. good user experience with the drag and drop. . . versatility of the Live API to postgres, sql server and oracle databases. We use Cognos to deliver operational reports to all production units and great and very well presented reports and productivity indicators to senior managers
It is a very powerful tool but not as easy to understand quickly as other tools on the market for the same price .. The learning curve is broad. The initial configuration is not easy, the dashboard function does not have many options. Installation can also be a complicated issue and may require vendor support
Luigi S.
Computer Software, self-employed
Used daily for 2+ years
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Reliability, easy of use, complete set of functions, integration with other web tools, security and maintenance
The price is not for small companies, the implementation of the whole functions always requires an expert
Anonymous Reviewer
Verified reviewer
Accounting, 11-50 employees
Used other for 2+ years
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Most employers love this software because it is easy for employees to use. Since it is fast, efficient, simple, and does its job well. You can also run great reports in it too.
Sometimes the software has a glitch here and there, but every product does. I am sure there are less expensive products on the market, but why use something that isn't tried and true?
Ratnakar K.
Computer Software, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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Enterprise level BI implementation can be with less customizations. Can build robustic solution using product.
Most of small and medium size will not prefer this product because of the cost. Real time analytics will not be available.
Ric D.
Computer Software,
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This software is very flexible and extensive enough to meet almost any of your needs. The reporting engine allows for complex queries and views that far surpass standard reporting methods.
While I was not involved in the purchase of the software it is my understanding the cost was a little high and this is not designed for novice users.
Deb T.
Primary/Secondary Education, 501-1,000 employees
Used weekly for 1-2 years
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This product will do just about anything you want it to do. It does take more of a skilled employee in order to create things. However, anyone can run things once they are created.
This product is pricey, especially for a mid range company. It takes a lot of training and setup to get the product going as one would like.
RAPID FORCE T.
Computer Software, 1-10 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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Cognos has performed splendidly, met and went well past our expectations. We use it for modeling, budgets, and forecasts. We exist in a sector with a lot volatility, so being flexible is everything.The architecture of the application can be tiered nicely for performance. This allows us to scale the application to support our growing user base. Cognos' mobile features are mature and we do use that as well.
No pros were added to this review
Expensive product comparatively with other latest BI products in the market and revolving around BIG DATA.
Anonymous Reviewer
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Computer Software, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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We are currently using it in our project for reporting purpose.
Its is a wonderful tool to make the reports.It has many functionalities and we can make different type of reports like PIE , BAR and many more. It has cool functionality, Good security features. we can connect to different types of databases.
Some times we were unable to save the reports.Rest all good. High pricing.
Terrill J.
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, 501-1,000 employees
Used weekly for 6-12 months
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My overall experience with the software was very good and productive
The software was very productive and have very professional support . It was very useful and fast
The cons was pricing and overall learning curve of the software . But once the software was up and running it really was productive
Chinna C.
Verified reviewer
Information Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees
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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..
It is suitable for Huge data projects.
Expensive and difficult to understand
Jeanette J.
Philanthropy, 201-500 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
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Our agency has used cogging for two years and has found it to be very user-friendly. It has the capability of generating training certificates for our employees and has a wide variety of training available. We have found the price to be very reasonable for what our agency needed to a training site. We would recommend this product.
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Mario J.
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We are finding value across our enterprise using Cognos reporting. With its easy and native integrations with all sorts of enterprise resource and planning tools, its a great value for the price.
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Bob B.
Computer Software, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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This product / release is a great self administered SaaS BI tool. Great for the creation of modules , reports and visual dashboards.
Price- Subscription base. SaaS. Easy to use
No cons were added to this review
Cherup c.
Verified reviewer
Information Technology and Services, 1,001-5,000 employees
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IBM Cognos maintain huge data and so many new features are in new versions.Easy to understand the structure of cognos.It is suitable for medium and large projects .
Performance wise good
Licence cost is high
Jeremias E.
Verified reviewer
Higher Education, 501-1,000 employees
Used monthly for less than 6 months
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IBM Cognos Analytics offers the up-to-date version of the application that you can use immediately to your reports.
Cognos Analytics on Cloud removes the expensive and tedious process of installation Cognos Analytics on-premise server.
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.
Ron W.
Consumer Goods, 51-200 employees
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The GUI and simplicity of creating visual reports
The cost is prohibitive unless it is licensed with other IBM products