IBM Cognos Review

PROS: I am very pleased that Cognos continuously innovates its features by harnessing on AI. This direction will make me a lasting user of Cognos.

CONS: There is room for improvement in its interface for the creation of dashboards and visualization tools.

PROS: Cognos has a massive library to store data, giving you a complete arsenal to choose from when crafting reports.

CONS: Operations have improved thanks to Cognos' powerful analytical capability.

PROS: Cognos is very easy to use that it didn't take a while for everyone in the team to be put on board and benefit from its features.

CONS: The platform should invest in providing all the resources needed for training.

PROS: Cognos is impressively robust with functionalities that can take on difficult tasks. Nevertheless, it requires minimal effort to understand and use.

CONS: The one I'm using doesn't recognize the control version.

PROS: Cognos is a one-stop-shop platform in providing you all the data-related tasks you need. It strategically leverages machine-learning, self-service, and enterprise reporting. I'm really impressed that unlike other BI platforms, Cognos can deliver multiple tasks: data extraction, charting, natural language, etc.

CONS: It's nearly impossible to migrate and serve a large number of users without facing great difficulties. Also, the new versions are quite clunky and often don't run smoothly.

PROS: Cognos fits the needs of medium to large-scale organizations as it provides features critical to BI management: data governance and security and configurable dashboard for monitoring and assessment.

CONS: Even with the upgraded version, we can't do budget planning, targeting, data exploration, and capacity-building.

PROS: I love that we could customize our dashboards and design them to look professional. Data management has also drastically improved since using Cognos.

CONS: There are some data-related tasks that Cognos doesn't offer such as planning and forecasting.

PROS: We are very satisfied with its data extraction and visualization features. Our company has been benefitting from Cognos for more than a year now and I can confidently say the app helped scale up our performance.

CONS: I wish it could be more generous in allowing me as the dashboard developer to take control of the functionalities within my creation.

PROS: IBM Cognos is very easy to use and dynamic for personalization. The dashboard my team is using was created all by myself without much trouble.

CONS: Cognos may be better if it integrates with web-based data transmission programs like the RESTful API.

PROS: We’ve been using IBM Cognos Analytics for nearly a year. With its help, we have done many analytics and graphs. It is easy to use and its graph recommendations are reliable. We are using this software to shape and cleanse data as well as merge a variety of data sources so we can comprehend them better.

CONS: It could have been better if it runs its analysis in databases that have SQL Push Back. This is particularly important so we can save time, especially when running large datasets.

PROS: Previously, I was using an on-premise analytics solution. When I decided to move to the cloud, IBM's Cognos was the first thing that came to mind. I am glad I chose it because it has a great environment. Plus, IBM helped help me migrate my data.

CONS: It took IBM's team a long time to assess our needs before we could implement and deploy Cognos for our business.

PROS: IBM is always working on improving Cognos, which makes it more attractive to users and makes it easier for them to use it.

CONS: It takes a while for Cognos to roll out changes for certain modules or features, such as the administration window. At the moment, it is partially still the old one, which was more adaptable was more capable of doing more. They should not advance updates unless they can transform sections of the software fully.

PROS: Cognos can perform a multitude of tasks unlike any of its competitors in the market. It can find answers using its sophisticated machine-learning, create reports and include visualizations, disseminate them to internal users. We also love Cognos' customer support service which we always can turn to to find solutions as soon as possible.

CONS: Pricier than its competitors but definitely value for money.

PROS: Cognos provides a narrative of your business performance out of the data it has collected. It lays the story out in visuals for quicker and easier understanding. The visualization tools and export action make Cognos the perfect software for my needs.

CONS: Learning to use IBM is not an easy task. I often get caught up in the web of data and have to resort to calling their customer support.

PROS: The best thing about Cognos is its integration with our preferred spreadsheet software, which allows us to see the latest data updates on the platform.

CONS: The remote use function of Cognos can be unreliable at times and it acts up especially during calculations.

PROS: Cognos possesses a massive space for recordkeeping and allowing all or selected users within an organization to access the data necessary to perform their tasks.

CONS: Step-by-step training on how to maximize our experience with Cognos will be great.

PROS: We have been using Cognos solutions for quite a long time so we’re really happy when they released the Cognos 11. Our team is looking forward to using this platform and see what it can do. We paired it with our Netezza data warehouse appliance and it does great in helping the company’s decision-makers get essential information and insights necessary in making smarter decisions.

CONS: So far, the only thing we consider as a drawback of using the platform is the difficulty meeting our client’s scorecard request. To render a single scorecard, our team still have to run multiple reports or jobs.

PROS: Cognos' analytical power is marvelous as we have proved it can predict several scenarios and provide useful analysis on them.

CONS: I don't think any beginner would understand its working in one go. Learning Cognos would require some time under the training of Cognos tech experts.

PROS: IBM Cognos is a first-rate analytics tool and its configurability, as well as its efficient operation, is something to talk about.

CONS: Similar tools claim that they have cost-effective packages, which can be difficult for executives to decide whether to go with Cognos or not.

PROS: The latest update to Cognos has made its interface cleaner, which lets me find my way around it faster for analyzing and displaying data. This way, the process of generating visual reports has become more powerful.

CONS: I am a newbie to Cognos so it is a bit difficult for me to navigate my way around it. But that is not the fault of IBM; rather, it's because I do not know much about it yet.

PROS: What I like about this solution is the ability it had given us to view and analyze large datasets. With the help of initial training, you can fully take advantage of its features and tools offered. It is easy to use, and it comes with a variety of expert options. Amazing!

CONS: Cognos IBM Analytics is a bit hard to use, especially for users who don’t have a background about this kind of software. It comes with multiple features, which might trigger confusions. Unlike other software, it’s not using a drag-and-drop method, and you need to understand the basic data carefully. This makes it necessary for you to get the initial training for clear understanding.

PROS: It is great that IBM keeps enhancing Cognis with new features and functionalities. I especially love the latest update! Because of the continuous development, I feel that I can do more on a single platform.

CONS: I have tested this several times. I would run the visualization engine repeatedly and generate the report that I want. However, there were moments that the platform would bog down. Because of my testing, I am pretty sure the problem is on the database of Cognos or something similar.

PROS: IBM Cognos is releasing a lot of new features and enhancements lately. The new AI assistant is especially interesting and I look forward to working with it more. Other than that, I like how the user-friendly platform eases the job of producing reports and onboarding other users.

CONS: One thing I do not like about Cognos is the lack of a selection and search functionality. This is a pretty basic feature, I believe, that they should include. However, so far there seems to be no plan to add it to the platform.

PROS: We have more than a hundred thousand students in our school district and Cognos was able to handle all their data including school data. Undoubtedly, Cognos Analytics is a powerful platform. Aside from managing our data, we also utilize the platform for reporting. We can acquire significant data which have helped improve our decision-making.

CONS: I admire the power of this platform but just like any other software, it also comes with some disadvantages. One of which is the learning curve. New users without experience using other BI tools may find it difficult to learn how to operate the system and make the most out of it. The platform’s appearance is also a bit outdated. A little update and upgrade won’t hurt.

PROS: Among the best things about IBM’s Cognos Analytics are its ease of use (no need to undergo training) and it's an extremely powerful dashboarding feature that allows quick and easy creation and deployment of reliable dashboards throughout the company. IBM CA is so far a great tool to facilitate business intelligence.

CONS: It is challenging to create complex data structures if you do not have in-depth knowledge and comprehension of the data modeling concepts. I think the vendor and developers are completely aware of it because it seems like the latest additional features they released tend to solve the challenge.

PROS: I like that this platform can be integrated with other IBM Analytics tools such as the SPSS. With these integrations, we can get more out of the solution. Business decision-makers can access all the information they need to make smarter and informed business decisions.

CONS: It does not offer integrations with cloud-based solutions. It would be nice if it would.

PROS: The Cognos interface has a more sophisticated feel to it. Because of the facelift, it has been more seamless to switch between reports, especially the ones we use often. On top of that, the inbox and the dashboard are more streamlined.

CONS: The latest Cognos can be difficult to become familiar with especially if you are used to its previous version. And since the phasing out of older variants happened too quickly, organizations like ours had trouble keeping track of things.

PROS: Our business leaders are using this platform to request, review, and use enterprise data to determine scalability as well as strategy. It has been our business’ partner to success and it can be your ally too! The best thing is that this product constantly evolves so you will not be left behind in the competition.

CONS: Implementing the solution took a while. It has been longer than we originally expected. But I think it’s because we just underestimated the size of the task and not because there’s something wrong with the platform.