IBM Cognos

Full end to end enterprise BI capabilities, with easy access to development resources with technical capability and a well established vendor support and development infrastructure. Ability to develop and maintain a business metadata layer meant that we had a single version of the truth for business measures.

The breadth and depth of system functionality and capabilities can mean it takes longer to get up to speed with the tool.

Develop and socialise your corporate BI strategy before deciding on a BI tool. If you have a requirement for enterprise BI, IBM Cognos must be on your shortlist. If integrated data security is important, IBM Cognos handles these requirements very well. Configuration of report, analysis and/or database level query processing capabilities is highly flexible but requires advanced technical capability to set up.

I like using Cognos Incentive Compensation because it has great user interface, good visualization, integration with custom APIs, several ways to interpret the data, active reports, dynamic cubes etc. This software is very flexible and extensive enough to meet almost every my requirement. The reporting engine allows me complex queries and views that far beat standard reporting methods. It offers functionality and different features. I also like the ease of use and so my customers too. This powerful application offers me to run any report I want and to create new ones as the business changes.

Cognos's customer support sometimes is not as I expected. The support should be quick and professional. Cognos should have more error details or better documentation to be able to track down the solution. In addition, workspace needs to be more integrated and advanced in comparison to other solutions on market. In my opinion, it is a bit outdated in terms of GUI compared to BusinessObjects. The majority of time, the error doesn't provide meaningful info, so it is always difficult to search and find the solution. One more weak point is installing too many packages. I‘m not satisfied it can't integrate with the Oracle database. Before the purchase this application I knew the costs will be high and therefore I don’t think it is made for beginner users.

I would recommend adding more functionality to this tool like other competitors. Keep in mind the software is there to help you to accomplish your primary reporting business but no one solution may meet all your needs. I would like to recommend it especially because of its robustness and performance I’m mostly satisfied. Of course, I prefer trial version if possible and making pro and con list before making any decision. The price is reasonable.