We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos, Microsoft Power BI, and SAP Crystal Reports based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Tableau, Oracle and others in Reporting."Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."
"The most valuable feature is developing reports from different data sources, making it a reliable data source."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"A drag-and-drop interface for selecting creating ad hoc reports makes this product very easy to use."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"Cognos is the best application with dashboards,batch reporting, jobs, events and ad-hoc reporting for business users."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"The most interesting feature of Microsoft Power BI is that it's very user-friendly."
"It's a pretty scalable product."
"We found the initial setup to be straightforward."
"Its visualizations and dashboards are most valuable. Power BI is great in terms of visualizations and dashboards. The reports that we previously had were not very nice in terms of visualization. It also provides the ability to play with the data."
"Its data visualization provides the user the ability to quickly look at data and focus on relevant information, allowing them to make an immediate decision."
"There is a feature in Microsoft BI that allows JSON data to SQL on the dashboards effectively and quickly."
"This product has a lot of features and most of them are user-friendly."
"It is more user-friendly compared to SSRS."
"I find Crystal Reports very easy to use, even for a non-technical person."
"The most valuable feature is that from a user's point of view, it is easy to use and requires just a simple click to generate a report."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a fantastic way of generating reports."
"It is an user-friendly solution."
"SAP Crystal Reports offers a plethora of features, many of which were available much earlier than in the Crystal Reports we previously used. We extensively use its capabilities for generating general reports, working with Kaspersky data, and even incorporating images into our reports. The range of functions available in SAP Crystal Reports is diverse, and we leverage them across various systems for our needs."
"The initial setup of the solution is pretty easy."
"We use SAP Crystal Reports for operational reporting."
"I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality."
"Extending dynamic cubes aggregate awareness with calculated measures."
"The technical support team’s response time is slow and needs to be improved."
"Tableau and Power BI are faster than Cognos."
"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."
"IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement."
"We need more predictive analytical functions, not only diagnostic or decryptic analytics."
"Cognos is quite slow - it's missing the performance of the PowerPlay cubes."
"I have found using Microsoft BI is not easy. For example, trying to use the auto-refresh feature is not simple."
"The admin view could be improved by making it more simplified to manage a users' activity and other things."
"The smart phone application could be improved, along with better graphics and faster updating."
"The graphic interface could be better."
"I'm not overly technical, and so I can't really speak to any shortcomings from a technical standpoint."
"BI is scalable, but there are some problems with limited online storage."
"Microsoft BI lacks integration capabilities, so it needs to consider increasing its integration capabilities."
"My data is restricted to my DB and I'm not sure how this would handle an extremely large dataset."
"SAP Crystal Reports should provide better support for dynamic connectors."
"The financing part needs improvement."
"If at all possible, a little bit of improvement on the analytical side is needed."
"A real improvement would be a simpler system that allows users to play with the visualization without needing specialized skills and code."
"It has significantly enhanced security features, especially when compared to the standard security features of the earlier PeerSpot version I purchased. I've observed improvements in security, and overall, it's quite commendable. Regarding potential enhancements for the next release of this solution, I haven't closely examined SAP Crystal Reports 53. I've only encountered it briefly, perhaps once or twice. However, I anticipate that it likely offers advanced features distinct from its predecessor. I believe there may be notable improvements and additions in the latest version, and I look forward to exploring them further."
"SAP Crystal Reports has some compatibility issues with third-party products."
"There could be improvements made to the analytics capabilities."
