Why use Cognos?

[B.C.]

I'll be giving an internal presentation at our enterprise to a fairly big group of BI tool users. One of our main BI tools is Cognos. I'd like to especially highlight what Cognos Analytics can do that our other BI tools can't, and I'm looking for suggested points that I can make. Other tools being represented include Tableau and Looker, to name a few.

So what would you say CA can do that other BI tools can't, or what can CA do better than other tools?

Thank you in advance for your response.

[CognosPaul]

This is definitely a loaded question.

Cognos is incredibly powerful when it comes to reports. With a very well designed framework model you can pretty much do anything. Even without an FM model, the datasets and data modules are advanced enough to allow for complex analyses.

1. Embedded live reports in other applications. This can be iFrames or through the SDK/CMS.
2. Using Cognos as a data source for a web application, having the report return a JSON output.
3. Building 500 page books (technically this was a series of reports that were emailed to the printers automatically every December, they were the ones that collated it into the actual book).
4. Security security security. Object security, data security. You can make a single report look completely different for different classes of users very easily. Most BI software doesn't have anywhere near the complexity of Cognos' security. The vast majority of BI products I've worked with have a distinct lack of security completeness.

The new 11.1 has AI assistant and exploration features that really shines. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it does make it easier for analysts to explore their data.

[B.C.]

This is all great stuff that I will definitely add. Thanks CognosPaul !

Does anyone else have anything to add? I'm thinking along the lines of what can be done with OLAP style modeling/analysis. I don't believe these other tools have such capabilities.

[CognosPaul]

Cognos really does shine with OLAP. There are three cubing technologies that come with Cognos by default, 1. PowerCubes, 2. Dynamic Cubes, 3. DMR. DMR is a special case in that it's really a relational database that's pretending to be an OLAP source. It does work really well now though.

You can do pretty much anything you would expect to be able to do with OLAP, drilling down/up, expanding levels, working with tuples and sets. In many ways I find working with OLAP models to be significantly easier than relational.

[B.C.]

Thanks CognosPaul ! Great stuff, I'm hoping to touch a little on everything that Cognos can do. There is a lot to touch on and hopefully I don't miss anything big.

[EZodeiko]

Cognos can call Oracle functions needed for row-level-security set at a database level. 
You can set the Context in a Cognos data source.  Cannot set any context, that we're aware of, in Tableau. 
List, operational, labels and repeater tables, or other types of non-traditional reports, like mimicking Business Forms, can be created in Cognos, not Tableau.
Scheduling and Event/trigger based notifications are better in Cognos.
Easier to build a business layer using Framework Manager. 

Tableau is more user intuitive when it comes to visualization building. 

Check out an article authored by me and my group from August 2017, comparing Cognos and Tableau.  Really, the tools can serve two distinct purposes.
https://mailchi.mp/25d88b5b458e/cedar-news-may-edition-837625

Good luck!
Liz

[Lynn]

Check out an article authored by me and my group from August 2017, comparing Cognos and Tableau.  Really, the tools can serve two distinct purposes.
https://mailchi.mp/25d88b5b458e/cedar-news-may-edition-837625

Great article! Although reference to the town immediately gave me cravings for Hoagie Haven and PJs! Must make a point to visit in 2019. A beautiful place!

[CognosPaul]

Check out an article authored by me and my group from August 2017, comparing Cognos and Tableau.  Really, the tools can serve two distinct purposes.
https://mailchi.mp/25d88b5b458e/cedar-news-may-edition-837625

Dangit! Why have I not seen this before? Do you have an RSS feed?

[HelloCognos]

Hi,

I have been with Cognos for almost a decade now. It is an amazing product. What's very exciting is the upcoming 11.1 The AI and Answering Question with the Assistant Panel is totally cool!! The new Mapping function is amazing.. Just drop the Zip code, or CITY, State and it creates the initial map for you. So much more and more.....


I just wanted to share this with everyone who has been very helpful with my work.

Thanks :) :)

[rteruyas]

Also, I really like being able to take your mht file (active report) and show it to other people who doesn't have access to your BI environment.

[B.C.]

Thank you thank you everyone! This is great stuff I will incorporate into the prezo.

[HelloCognos]

Hi,
I'm using Tableau and Cognos presently and I faced an issue with the client asking for quick Visualization including the Mapping functions. So, I think the two items Paul and Lynn mentioned are very important to note as advantages of Cognos over the other products,
1) The utilization of Framework Manager to model the data extensively before providing the Metadata information to the developers. So you could be just the Dashboard Report developer and just obtaining the so called Package for your work. In other tools, including Tableau, I haven't see this separation of Modeler and Developer. Although, the Cognos developer needs to understand the modeling aspects as well but at the present time, I don't need to worry too much about modedling but rather spend extensive time in Visualization and Statistical modeling. Huge Time Saving Advantage. So the separation of work is possible due to your resources and limitations.

2) Cognos 11.1 ability matches and even supersedes the Tableau's functions in mapping, AI, and as I mentioned previously the Assistant Panel.

3) When you are dealing with Trillions #s of data, Cognos Server architecture I think does a better job as a middle tier server compared to Tableau.

Hope the above helps!!

I can thing of couple of advantages but the above are some of the major advantages.

[B.C.]

Thank you HelloCognos! Great stuff!

[MFGF]

One very important thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is governance. Cognos Analytics supports a function called Lineage, where you can choose a value and see exactly where it is coming from. This is important in helping users understand whether they are looking at trusted, governed data, and whether the numbers they are seeing are something they can trust as being accurate. There is also the ability to integrate with other IBM products (Information Server) to extend the lineage back through the ETL process, too, so you can not only see where in the data warehouse your value is coming from, but how it passed from source systems into that data warehouse. Tableau can't do anything like this.
Additionally there is the Glossary feature, that allows you to link Cognos Analytics to IBM's Governance Catalog - where standard business terms are defined and described. This means you can be looking at a "Production difference" item in your report, choose it, and use the Glossary function to link to IGC (a centrally maintained catalog of terms) to find out what "Production difference" actually means within your organization. This means there is no confusion in misunderstanding what a value actually represents.
Still on the topic of governance, you can also mention Analytics Governance - the ability to restrict capabilities at a granular level to make sure that users cannot do things they are not supposed to be doing (eg edit commission reports so that they earn more than they are actually entitled to). Tableau supports some level of this, but comes nowhere near the control you can exercise in CA.
Other topics to mention:
Report busting - Tableau can't do this
Event monitoring and alerting - Cognos is decades ahead of Tableau on this
Pixel-perfect reports - always a strength of the Cognos offering, and something Tableau is working slowly towards, but they are miles behind
Scheduling - Tableau supports basic scheduling but again it's light years behind Cognos here
Then there's the new stuff:
Smarts - Cognos Analytics 11.1 introduces smarts - helping you identify what's important to you - and predictive - helping you understand what's truthful. These are baked in to the product, meaning you can quickly see important correlations and relationships in your data, understand what are the most significant drivers of a particular factor (based on the real patterns in your data rather than having to guess which items to view) and interact using a smart assistant, which understands the intent of your question, delivers the answer and also suggests other related insights that are likely to be of interest. This is a huge differentiator over "dumb" data discovery tools like Tableau, where you are at the whim of the dashboard designer to figure out what visualisations to bring in and what data to view. The risk (of course) with any "dumb" tool is that it can lead to "confirmation bias" - the author thinks they know the cause of a factor occurring, so they build a dashboard to support their theory, where in reality they have entirely missed the real driver of that factor because they never thought to look for it. CA's Smarts tell you what are the real drivers in your data, so there's no confirmation bias.

I'm sure I can think of much more, but hopefully these are good ideas for you...

Cheers!

MF.

[B.C.]

MFGF - Wow, this is fantastic! I will definitely touch on these points. Starting to put the material together now for my early January prezo. Thank You!

[B.C.]

Can anyone confirm if CA is capable of pixel-perfect reports... or do you have to use Report Studio (legacy) ?

[CognosPaul]

Your question is a bit ambiguous. When you're building reports in CA you're using Report Studio. Do you mean in dashboards?

If you're skilled enough with Report Studio, you can certainly make any pixel-perfect report you want. At the most basic level you can consider Cognos to be a complex HTML generator. You send in a query, and it spits out fully formed HTML.

Any ad-hoc tool, like dashboards and exploration, will never be as flexible as a professional development environment. You have a small amount of flexibility when it comes to colors and fonts, but nothing like what you have in RS.

[B.C.]

Thanks CognosPaul, that makes sense.

[MFGF]

Just by way of clarification...
"Report Studio" was the title of the professional authoring tool (pat) in ReportNet, Cognos 8 and Cognos 10. For the Cognos Analytics release it was given a new skin and rebranded as "Report Authoring". It still has the same capabilities as Report Studio, including the ability to author pixel-perfect reports, but it has a completely different UI.
Old-timers like myself and Paul still refer to it as Report Studio but officially that label went away for CA.

Cheers!

MF.