My advice to others looking into using IBM Cognos is that if they have not used anything else, they can proceed with it, as it is good and easy to set up. Everything appears to be good with IBM Cognos. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.
My advice to others looking into using IBM Cognos is that it is way easier and more convenient for data visualization and integration, and the dashboard sharing function has improved our collaboration with my colleagues and my team members. I would definitely recommend IBM Cognos for its practical features and ease of use. I have additional thoughts about IBM Cognos before we wrap up, as its speed simplifies my everyday work through data analysis and reporting, enabling me to make data-driven decisions easily. I give this product a rating of eight out of ten.
EDW Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 5
Dec 19, 2025
I do not use Dell PowerStore or Dremio. I work for a university setting with a very simple infrastructure, so we only use IBM Cognos and IBM DataStage. I am very new to the organization with less than a year of experience, but IBM Cognos has been used here for more than 16 or 17 years. I work in the higher education space at Boston College with approximately 9,000 to 10,000 students total. I do not develop reports for IBM Cognos. We only host IBM Cognos infrastructure for our different user groups. My responsibility involves working with different IT teams who maintain systems across the university. I connect to them using IBM DataStage to perform ETL activities and load data into an Oracle database, from which I provide access through IBM Cognos. My team maintains the infrastructure for both DataStage and IBM Cognos. Regarding integration, I use IBM DataStage. We use IBM DataStage on Cloud Pak and migrated from InfoSphere DataStage. The Cloud Pak version is also installed on-premises in our own data center. The modern OpenShift cluster-based platform is what we refer to as Cloud Pak. The installation of Cloud Pak for DataStage happened almost two years ago, while IBM Cognos has always been in place. I believe we are currently using version 11.2.4. Referencing the machine learning capabilities of IBM Cognos is not my expertise. I do not have information about the pricing for IBM Cognos since that is managed by a different team which handles procurement. We only provide support for IBM DataStage and IBM Cognos. I would rate this review 9 out of 10.
Consultant at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Apr 8, 2024
I would describe a specific scenario or project where the solution improved our company's decision-making process by giving us some organization. My company uses the tool for reporting. My company manages IBM Cognos with another tool. My company has seven people to manage not just IBM Cognos but also other tools. One person will be enough to manage IBM Cognos. Honestly, IBM Cognos won't be the first choice if I have to recommend a solution to others. If the price of IBM Cognos is not very expensive, people can buy it, but for the same price, they can have Microsoft Power BI. I think I will recommend Microsoft Power BI to others. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.
You can use the dashboard to determine where it stands based on the graph. The amount is included in the dashboard. We use data from the United States, the UK, Germany, and Japan. The data is stored in our CCS report. Based on the ID, we can retrieve specific data within that report. Certain portions of the data will display information for only one particular country. This restriction confines the data within the report. We are implementing security measures to ensure data integrity. Some users access IBM Cognos directly for their businesses, while others log in to the Cognos console portal. These users interact with the actual JavaScript within the portal. This process may require additional time for adjustments, including those related to the DKA component. If you have the budget, you can opt for Cognos; otherwise, you can opt for Power BI. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
The solution's basic use cases are business reporting and data analysis, and it's bundled with most of the products. All IBM products in our region should be promoted more. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Deputy Director Operations Management Control at Mapfre
Real User
Jul 27, 2022
My advice to others is to make solutions with a bridge between them to optimize the use of the data. In addition, it's important to structure your data well to facilitate better understanding among your users. When users use a data module, for example, it must have well-structured folders which include the documentation, the calculations, the KPIs, etc. We train to make all the KPIs in the data module, because if you make the KPIs in the report or in the dashboard, then you can't use those KPIs in other objects. We have had other solutions from different consultants where they made the calculations with the reports, such that to make another report, you would have to repeat the calculation. Another piece of advice is not to use the Analysis Studio's reporting tool, because it's very complex to maintain. Instead, we tend to use the dashboard, and that is what I would recommend to others as well. On the whole, I would rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.
Anybody can learn to use Cognos, but they need some data analytics skills and knowledge of data warehousing, including the complete data pipeline from the source to creating reports. IBM's developer network provides lots of resources for learning this tool and documentation for all versions. I would rate Cognos as seven out of ten.
Business Intelligence Data Warehouse Architect at a non-tech company with self employed
Real User
Mar 11, 2022
Once you develop the skill set to operate the IBM Cognos application, it's a very robust system. IBM Cognos has come a long way and they've done a lot of things with dashboarding, but it could be a little, too late, and not enough. They need to do better. I rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.
Director at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jan 12, 2022
I think that Cognos is very efficient for the matured enterprise. I also believe that the functions for the BI are not mature yet. I would advise asking for assistance whenever implementing a new function so that they can properly handle the configuration, adjustment, and tuning of the servers which will make it easy on you as the end user.
Director at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Dec 24, 2021
My advice is if you are able to solve your problem with an easier tool than IBM Cognos, you should use it. However, if you have a complex problem and you want to distribute a lot of information about the users it is important to get the users to build good reports, then I think is the best tool in the market. I rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.
Sr. Data Warehouse Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Nov 20, 2021
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cognos a 7. I do like the product. I think there is room for improvement. Cognos has started taking steps towards improvement like new solutions such as Tableau, however, there is still quite a way to go. Cognos's framework model requirement does restrict everything. If you want to make any changes to existing reports, it is a tedious process to add some new tables or change joints or things like that, to make it part of the data model. That's one of the main issues that we had. But other than that, I'm quite happy with the product.
Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Apr 24, 2021
We are customers and partners. Currently, we are also using AIOps and IBM Watson also, which is an artificial intelligence tool that is also very easy. We trust IBM and its platforms. They've optimized for monitoring very well. Their support is also excellent. I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. So far, it's been a great solution for us. We're quite happy with its capabilities.
On a scale of one to ten I would give IBM Cognos a nine. I would suggest to potential customers that if they don't have experience, there is a lot of information on the web. There are wonderful video clips in YouTube. There are wonderful blogs. Before you decide on a solution, check. There might be something that's even better than what you thought initially. The abilities are so wide and amazing that a lot of times people take a solution which is not the best, because they do what they know and they don't think, "Hey, I can do something much better." Make sure you know all the options before you choose one. And again, reconsider. If you checked it three or four versions ago, then check again. There are new features all the time that are changing and improving, and you can get amazing results.
My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to ensure that they are clear with the business requirements. You have to define the model in the first place, so you want to design the model with all of the business hierarchies and attributes so that there will be no further re-working it, or any re-production of work in the future. This means that you have to plan your model, get a model, and then framework manage your model well in advance. Then your reporting and analytics will be very good. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Director - Metrics & Analytics at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Oct 29, 2020
I'm a user, not a vendor or a reseller. We use the enterprise version of the product. In terms of BI tools, I'd advise others that this is one of the best. It was easy to use once we had the initial training that is required. The features such as storytelling, AI based sessions, are great. I would recommend it to other companies for sure. On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it at an eight.
Senior Technical Coordinator - IM and BI at a healthcare company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Sep 16, 2020
I think as per my understanding, everyone has their own criterion and measure for the way a product fits into their scenario. If they have the resources and can budget for the investment in this product and if they have the kind of infrastructure that warrants the investment, definitely to go for this product. If the business or user has budget constraints, I would say there are a lot more other options. It comes down to the capabilities of the different solutions and how they satisfy user needs. On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate this product a seven-out-of-ten. I keep three points back because I feel that in being a leader, they are missing some of the functionality that they should have already which is somewhat basic. Everything it should be supporting is not there. Big data support came very late into Cognos and the product is too costly, I would say.
Manager BI Manufacturing at a paper AND forest products with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jul 16, 2018
I would rate this solution as a nine out of 10, because of the support. Other than support, everything works. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: When we search for a vendor, we always make comparisons between them. In France, we were surprised by the product, what it delivers, and what is included in the package. There are a lot of different tools on the market that deliver on some points, but not all. Cognos Analytics gives us a lot of possibilities, including dashboarding, which you would have to purchase additionally from other providers. Every three or four years, we do some benchmarking to analyze the product.
Developer at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jul 8, 2018
If you are looking into BI tools, you need to go through how scalable and dynamic the tool will be, and how you're going to actually use it, how the users are going to use the tool in the end. There are various tools on the market. One can do one thing and another can do the other thing. There is not much of a comparison. If you look at Cognos, or if you look at other tools, Cognos is really good when you're looking for credibility of data. But if you're looking at other aspects of usability, then it's not that great. Investigate thoroughly is my advice. Cognos is an eight out of 10 because it's still lagging behind in some of the capabilities which other BI tools in the market are providing. Images are one of those things. Otherwise, it's really good, it does the job. Still, people have the impression that Cognos still has that dependency on IT.
IBM Cognos provides a powerful toolset with AI-driven data exploration and robust reporting for efficient data-driven decisions. It supports seamless data integration and user-friendly dashboards for flexible report creation.IBM Cognos enables organizations to leverage AI-enhanced analytics, integrating data from multiple sources to create comprehensive business insights. It supports complex report creation, dashboards, and predictive capabilities, enhancing decision-making through...
My advice to others looking into using IBM Cognos is that if they have not used anything else, they can proceed with it, as it is good and easy to set up. Everything appears to be good with IBM Cognos. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.
My advice to others looking into using IBM Cognos is that it is way easier and more convenient for data visualization and integration, and the dashboard sharing function has improved our collaboration with my colleagues and my team members. I would definitely recommend IBM Cognos for its practical features and ease of use. I have additional thoughts about IBM Cognos before we wrap up, as its speed simplifies my everyday work through data analysis and reporting, enabling me to make data-driven decisions easily. I give this product a rating of eight out of ten.
I do not use Dell PowerStore or Dremio. I work for a university setting with a very simple infrastructure, so we only use IBM Cognos and IBM DataStage. I am very new to the organization with less than a year of experience, but IBM Cognos has been used here for more than 16 or 17 years. I work in the higher education space at Boston College with approximately 9,000 to 10,000 students total. I do not develop reports for IBM Cognos. We only host IBM Cognos infrastructure for our different user groups. My responsibility involves working with different IT teams who maintain systems across the university. I connect to them using IBM DataStage to perform ETL activities and load data into an Oracle database, from which I provide access through IBM Cognos. My team maintains the infrastructure for both DataStage and IBM Cognos. Regarding integration, I use IBM DataStage. We use IBM DataStage on Cloud Pak and migrated from InfoSphere DataStage. The Cloud Pak version is also installed on-premises in our own data center. The modern OpenShift cluster-based platform is what we refer to as Cloud Pak. The installation of Cloud Pak for DataStage happened almost two years ago, while IBM Cognos has always been in place. I believe we are currently using version 11.2.4. Referencing the machine learning capabilities of IBM Cognos is not my expertise. I do not have information about the pricing for IBM Cognos since that is managed by a different team which handles procurement. We only provide support for IBM DataStage and IBM Cognos. I would rate this review 9 out of 10.
I recommend IBM Cognos and rate it six out of ten overall.
I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
I would describe a specific scenario or project where the solution improved our company's decision-making process by giving us some organization. My company uses the tool for reporting. My company manages IBM Cognos with another tool. My company has seven people to manage not just IBM Cognos but also other tools. One person will be enough to manage IBM Cognos. Honestly, IBM Cognos won't be the first choice if I have to recommend a solution to others. If the price of IBM Cognos is not very expensive, people can buy it, but for the same price, they can have Microsoft Power BI. I think I will recommend Microsoft Power BI to others. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.
You can use the dashboard to determine where it stands based on the graph. The amount is included in the dashboard. We use data from the United States, the UK, Germany, and Japan. The data is stored in our CCS report. Based on the ID, we can retrieve specific data within that report. Certain portions of the data will display information for only one particular country. This restriction confines the data within the report. We are implementing security measures to ensure data integrity. Some users access IBM Cognos directly for their businesses, while others log in to the Cognos console portal. These users interact with the actual JavaScript within the portal. This process may require additional time for adjustments, including those related to the DKA component. If you have the budget, you can opt for Cognos; otherwise, you can opt for Power BI. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
The solution's basic use cases are business reporting and data analysis, and it's bundled with most of the products. All IBM products in our region should be promoted more. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.
Overall, I rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.
The solution is easy to use. Our customers could learn cognitive algorithms quickly with its help. I rate it an eight out of ten.
It is a good tool for a multinational enterprise. I rate it as an eight.
Because of IBM Cognos' design and implementation and because it better engages the user and customer, I rate it at nine out of ten.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
My advice to others is to make solutions with a bridge between them to optimize the use of the data. In addition, it's important to structure your data well to facilitate better understanding among your users. When users use a data module, for example, it must have well-structured folders which include the documentation, the calculations, the KPIs, etc. We train to make all the KPIs in the data module, because if you make the KPIs in the report or in the dashboard, then you can't use those KPIs in other objects. We have had other solutions from different consultants where they made the calculations with the reports, such that to make another report, you would have to repeat the calculation. Another piece of advice is not to use the Analysis Studio's reporting tool, because it's very complex to maintain. Instead, we tend to use the dashboard, and that is what I would recommend to others as well. On the whole, I would rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.
I rate this product a ten out of ten. I would advise a new user of IBM Cognos to have good IT support and people.
Anybody can learn to use Cognos, but they need some data analytics skills and knowledge of data warehousing, including the complete data pipeline from the source to creating reports. IBM's developer network provides lots of resources for learning this tool and documentation for all versions. I would rate Cognos as seven out of ten.
Once you develop the skill set to operate the IBM Cognos application, it's a very robust system. IBM Cognos has come a long way and they've done a lot of things with dashboarding, but it could be a little, too late, and not enough. They need to do better. I rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.
I rate IBM Cognos a nine out of ten.
I think that Cognos is very efficient for the matured enterprise. I also believe that the functions for the BI are not mature yet. I would advise asking for assistance whenever implementing a new function so that they can properly handle the configuration, adjustment, and tuning of the servers which will make it easy on you as the end user.
My advice is if you are able to solve your problem with an easier tool than IBM Cognos, you should use it. However, if you have a complex problem and you want to distribute a lot of information about the users it is important to get the users to build good reports, then I think is the best tool in the market. I rate IBM Cognos an eight out of ten.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cognos a 7. I do like the product. I think there is room for improvement. Cognos has started taking steps towards improvement like new solutions such as Tableau, however, there is still quite a way to go. Cognos's framework model requirement does restrict everything. If you want to make any changes to existing reports, it is a tedious process to add some new tables or change joints or things like that, to make it part of the data model. That's one of the main issues that we had. But other than that, I'm quite happy with the product.
I would rate IBM Cognos a nine out of 10.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Cognos a rating of eight.
We are customers and partners. Currently, we are also using AIOps and IBM Watson also, which is an artificial intelligence tool that is also very easy. We trust IBM and its platforms. They've optimized for monitoring very well. Their support is also excellent. I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten. So far, it's been a great solution for us. We're quite happy with its capabilities.
It's a good idea to take a course online to learn how it works before you start. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
On a scale of one to ten I would give IBM Cognos a nine. I would suggest to potential customers that if they don't have experience, there is a lot of information on the web. There are wonderful video clips in YouTube. There are wonderful blogs. Before you decide on a solution, check. There might be something that's even better than what you thought initially. The abilities are so wide and amazing that a lot of times people take a solution which is not the best, because they do what they know and they don't think, "Hey, I can do something much better." Make sure you know all the options before you choose one. And again, reconsider. If you checked it three or four versions ago, then check again. There are new features all the time that are changing and improving, and you can get amazing results.
My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to ensure that they are clear with the business requirements. You have to define the model in the first place, so you want to design the model with all of the business hierarchies and attributes so that there will be no further re-working it, or any re-production of work in the future. This means that you have to plan your model, get a model, and then framework manage your model well in advance. Then your reporting and analytics will be very good. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
I'm a user, not a vendor or a reseller. We use the enterprise version of the product. In terms of BI tools, I'd advise others that this is one of the best. It was easy to use once we had the initial training that is required. The features such as storytelling, AI based sessions, are great. I would recommend it to other companies for sure. On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it at an eight.
I think as per my understanding, everyone has their own criterion and measure for the way a product fits into their scenario. If they have the resources and can budget for the investment in this product and if they have the kind of infrastructure that warrants the investment, definitely to go for this product. If the business or user has budget constraints, I would say there are a lot more other options. It comes down to the capabilities of the different solutions and how they satisfy user needs. On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate this product a seven-out-of-ten. I keep three points back because I feel that in being a leader, they are missing some of the functionality that they should have already which is somewhat basic. Everything it should be supporting is not there. Big data support came very late into Cognos and the product is too costly, I would say.
For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent.
I would rate this solution as a nine out of 10, because of the support. Other than support, everything works. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: When we search for a vendor, we always make comparisons between them. In France, we were surprised by the product, what it delivers, and what is included in the package. There are a lot of different tools on the market that deliver on some points, but not all. Cognos Analytics gives us a lot of possibilities, including dashboarding, which you would have to purchase additionally from other providers. Every three or four years, we do some benchmarking to analyze the product.
If you are looking into BI tools, you need to go through how scalable and dynamic the tool will be, and how you're going to actually use it, how the users are going to use the tool in the end. There are various tools on the market. One can do one thing and another can do the other thing. There is not much of a comparison. If you look at Cognos, or if you look at other tools, Cognos is really good when you're looking for credibility of data. But if you're looking at other aspects of usability, then it's not that great. Investigate thoroughly is my advice. Cognos is an eight out of 10 because it's still lagging behind in some of the capabilities which other BI tools in the market are providing. Images are one of those things. Otherwise, it's really good, it does the job. Still, people have the impression that Cognos still has that dependency on IT.