IBM Cognos Controller Reviews

I use the solution for reporting and group consolidation.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is a properly working solution. My company has a support partner in Stockholm who has built several additional applications on IBM Cognos Controller. The functionalities and package offered by the product seem to be the right fit for our company.

IFRS 16 functionality is something that is not embedded in IBM Cognos Controller. My company uses a good built-in functionality in the tool, which was made by our support partner. IBM Cognos Controller should have inbuilt features to support IFRS 16 functionality. From a long-term requirement perspective, many of the customers who use the product want it to be a web-based solution rather than how it currently is, which is similar to a local installation.

I have been using IBM Cognos Controller since 2021 in my current company, but I have also used it before. My company is a customer of the product.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

The problem in stability arises from the fact that my company has not only IBM Cognos Controller but also IBM Planning Analytics, and there are some issues when it comes to updating these two databases. IBM Cognos Controller crashes at times, so there is no need to restart the servers. The tool would be much better if my company didn't have to deal with the aforementioned areas.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

My company hasn't faced any issues regarding scalability, which we can't overcome. Regarding the scalability, there is some work required in the product. A user should also have some knowledge to be able to operate the tool's scalability feature. Sometimes, my company has to contact our support partner to figure out how to do certain things in the product. So far, my company hasn't encountered any issues with the tool where we have to deal with volumes even though we have to deal with a lot of leasing contracts, like over 2,000. My company expects the product to offer more scalability.

My company has around 70 licenses.

My company has contact with the support partner with whom we have a support agreement, so the support is not directly from IBM. Whenever a problem arises, or there is a need to check with IBM, my company's support agreement with our support partner works well for us. My company doesn't have to wait for too long to get a resolution for our issues.

Previously, I used to use Excel.

The product's initial setup phase was difficult, but since my company had a support partner who also operated as an implementation partner, we did not experience any additional difficulties as a customer. There are several steps involved in the setup process, and it takes time, but it was not very complicated.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The technical installations can be completed in half a week to a week's time, but it took my company over a month since we had to build the model.

It is difficult to say whether I have seen a return on investment from the use of the solution. That is always a need to have a functional solution. IBM Cognos Controller is a very good system for our company. IBM Cognos Controller is worth the money a user pays for it. There are no alternatives to IBM Cognos Controller to take care of the reporting part. Compared to many other alternative products in the market, IBM Cognos Controller is a direct solution for my company.

The product is expensive, but compared to its other alternatives in the market, I feel that IBM Cognos Controller is a reasonably priced tool.

Everything depends on what kind of scale the users are planning to use the solution. The tool is mostly useful for meeting reporting needs, but it could be a better system if it is included in a single package offered by IBM with its other solutions since it would be a very strong package if plans to offer IBM Cognos Controller and IBM Cognos Controller and IBM Planning Analytics together as it would be much better to have everything on a single system. It would be better if the product is available as a web-based solution rather than having to install it on an on-premises model.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

We use it for our daily scheduled reports.

The most valuable feature is that you can bifurcate or clear reports. This is on the date ranges. 

If there's already a scheduled report and we want a subset of that report, that can also be created. So we do not have to schedule a new report or create a new subscription for that. At this rate, we can create a subset out of one report itself.

IBM should work on a little flexibility and user-friendliness, in the current interface. It looks very rigid and hard to read. We need to give flexibility to the user in the current situation. 

They should have a new interface where you have all the data elements there and a user can pick up the fields of metric that they want to look at and they can just build their own report on a go. A report on the go kind of thing is what I would suggest.

We've been using it for the last twenty years. 

It is very stable.

Cost is definitely a factor in terms of scalability, but it does have the feasibility or the scalability. The only thing is the cost.

I have not used technical support. 

The initial setup is a little tricky. I'm not too sure whether it's within our organization or it's a whole world thing. If a user has to get into Cognos, the setup, the play around, and all, it is difficult. It is a little challenging to get into.

Pricing is on the higher side, frankly speaking. Our team size is going up and we want to scale it up to give it to our analytics team. It's definitely costly.

It is a good tool. You don't get much more out of Cognos than what it is marketed for. We need to have tutorials. If a user is training or they go online and try to see what we are looking at and all, we get a lot of material. That material should be on the tool somewhere. There's no formal training that happens in the organization for Cognos.

There should be some kind of documentation on Cognos itself, which can help users to move within the Cognos and try to evaluate and use a couple of features that are there.

In the next release, I would like to see reports on the go. We need to pull in some kind of a report or something. A report on a go could be a good feature where a user can pull out anything that they want to, and they don't have to wait for scheduling it or subscribing to that particular report. During the checkup, they know that those fields are already available within Cognos.

I would rate it a seven out of ten.