Alteryx vs IBM Cognos comparison

Alteryx can be used to speed up or automate your business processes and enables geospatial and predictive solutions. Its platform helps organizations answer business questions quickly and efficiently, and can be used as a major building block in a digital transformation or automation initiative. With Alteryx, you can build processes in a more efficient, repeatable, and less error-prone way. Unlike other tools, Alteryx is easy to use without an IT background. The platform is very robust and can be used in virtually any industry or functional area.

With Alteryx You Can:

• Prep, blend, and analyze data
• Deliver faster, better business outcomes
• Automate analytics and data science
• Embed intelligent decisioning
• Deploy and share analytics in hours

Alteryx Features Include:

Some of the most valuable Alteryx features include:

Scalability, stability, flexibility, fast performance, no-code analytics, data processing, business logic wrapping, scheduling, ease of use, data blending from different platforms, geo-referencing, good customization capabilities, drag and drop functionality, intuitive user interface, connectors, machine learning, macros, simple GUI, integration with Python, good data transformation, good documentation, multiple database merging, and easy deployment.

Alteryx Can Be Used For:

• Combining and manipulating data within spreadsheets: Alteryx can be used in situations where complex data manipulation occurs. It can handle large data quickly, and the process is much simpler to see and understand.
  
  
• Database access and supplementing SQL development: Alteryx has several sets of database connectors and functions, including many functions that your average database does not. Alteryx can work with data from multiple databases or areas within a database. It allows users to filter, sort, calculate, etc. as they would commonly do in SQL or an ETL tool.
  
• API, cloud, and hybrid access: Alteryx can read and write data in databases, files, REST APIs, and a myriad of other locations (with the correct permissions). When a workflow is published, you can also call a workflow through a REST API to start it.
  
  
• Data science: Alteryx provides pre-built models that are extremely useful for data scientists who may have limited programming skills and also gives you the ability to add R or Python code directly within a workflow.
  
  
• Geospatial analysis: Alteryx gives users drag-and-drop tools to geocode, plot, and map locations, customers, competitors, or anything that has a location (employee, truck, pipeline, etc.).
  
  
• Reports and dashboards: Alteryx provides built-in tools that enable the building of reports and dashboards.

Alteryx Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Alteryx include
:

• Saves time: Alteryx helps shorten the time required to start analyzing data and looking for insights, minimizing the tasks that do not add value to the business and maximizing the analysis phase.
  
  
• Clear tool configurations: Alteryx provides simple and concise tool configurations that are quick and easy to set.
  
  
• Excellent workflow compatibility.
  
  
• Reduced development time: Alteryx has an extensive gallery of user-developed analytic applications that helps to reduce development time.
  
  
• Fast data loading: Alteryx has tools that make it very effective when working with big data sets.
  
  
• No-code, low-code analytic building blocks: You can prep, blend, and analyze data to enable highly configurable and repeatable workflows.
  
  
• Machine learning: Alteryx allows you to quickly create properly trained algorithms that are ready to deploy.

Reviews from Real Users

"Automation is the most valuable aspect for us. The ability to wrap business logic around the data is very helpful." - Theresa M., Senior Capacity Planner at a financial services firm

"Alteryx has made us more agile and increased the speed and effectiveness of decision making." - Richard F., Director, Digital Experience & Media at Qdoba Restaurant Corporation

"The scheduling feature for the automation is excellent." - Data Analytics Engineer at a tech services company

"The product is very stable and super fast, five-star. It's significantly more stable than its nearest competitor." - Director at a non-tech company

“A complete solution with very good user experience and a nice user interface.” - Solutions Consultant at a tech services company

"There are a lot of good customization capabilities." - Advance Analytics PO at a pharma/biotech company

IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides a wide range of tools to help you analyze your organization's data. IBM Cognos BI allows businesses to monitor events and metrics, create and view business reports, and analyze data to help them make effective business decisions.

IBM Cognos applies techniques to describe, summarize, and compare data, and draw conclusions. This allows users to see trends and discover anomalies or variances that may not be evident by simply reading data. Data sources that contain information from different areas of a business can be stored in separate packages. Users can see only information that they have been granted access to, based on their group or role.

IBM Cognos BI consolidates the following business intelligence functions into a single web-based solution:

• IBM Cognos Insight: Create personal and managed workspaces for data analysis. Using these interactive workspaces, you can share insight results with managers. Cognos Insight supports write-back, and you can also use these workspaces to capture and integrate management goals, commitments, and forecasts.
  
  
• IBM Cognos Workspace: With IBM Cognos Workspace, you can create rich, interactive workspaces using IBM Cognos content as well as data from external sources. You can view and open your favorite workspaces and reports, edit content in your workspaces, and share your workspaces via email.
  
  
• IBM Cognos Analytics: IBM Cognos Analytics utilizes built-in AI and intuitive searches which helps users to quickly create the visualizations and a wide range of reports. Cognos Analytics provides cognitive and managed self-service, enabling you to gain insights from controlled and trusted data.
  
  
• IBM Cognos Report Studio and IBM Cognos Query Studio: Easily create structured and query reports. IBM Cognos allows users to create application and report templates. In addition, report authors can reuse report objects to apply filters, fields, and styles to reports. Users can set the language of the user interface and report content according to the user's native language.
  
  
• IBM Cognos Event Studio: Receive notifications of events that occur within your organization in real time. Event Studio enables the creation of agents that detect the occurrence of business events, failures, or anomalies, based on the change of specific events or data conditions. Notification can be sent via email, publication in the portal, or by triggering reports.
  
  
• IBM Cognos Connection: This is the Web portal for IBM Cognos BI and is the central area for accessing all the IBM Cognos functions. In the web portal, users can schedule and distribute reports, create tasks, administer the server and the access permissions, and more.

Reviews from Real Users

IBM Cognos stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its powerful analysis tool and its reporting capabilities.

Prasad B., a senior software engineer at a financial services firm, notes, “The product is a very good reporting tool and is very flexible. It allows for the users to get a scheduled report. We can receive automated reports as well. They are easy to schedule on a weekly or monthly basis. It is very fast. I mean in means of report output, it's very fast compared to the actual clients involved.”