IBM Cognos BI

Complete BI capabilities - Reporting, Analysis, Dashboards and Scorecards

IBM® Cognos® 8 Business Intelligence delivers the complete range of BI capabilities: Reporting, Analysis, Dashboarding and Scorecards on a single, service-oriented architecture (SOA). Author, share and use reports that draw on data across all enterprise sources for better business decisions.

Reporting

Reporting gives you access to a complete list of self-serve report types, is adaptable to any data source and operates from a single metadata layer for a variety of benefits such as multilingual reporting, ad hoc query, and scheduling and bursting.

IBM Cognos 8 BI Reporting enables users to make smarter business decisions by providing them with a comprehensive set of reporting capabilities and access to the information they need. Reporting with IBM Cognos 8 BI delivers a single, Web-based, solution for all components of the reporting lifecycle:

• Self-service
• Author once, access anywhere enables IT to create a single report that users can access on multiple devices, in 25+ languages, in multiple formats, and in other applications and processes
• Report lifecycle enables collaboration between business and IT by enabling the sharing of queries and reports

IBM Cognos 8 BI Reporting also includes:

    * Flexible distribution methods: scheduled, event-driven, centralized Web-based access, email, application integration, Microsoft Office support
    * Adobe PDF, XML, HTML and CSV output types
    * Integrates with existing investments in security, applications servers, and other IT infrastructure
    * IBM Cognos 8 Go! Mobile lets you access and use reports from your mobile devices
    * Integration with predictive analytics from SPSS, an IBM company, to provide insight into data and enables prediction of future results

Analysis

Analysis enables the guided exploration of information that pertains to all dimensions of your business, regardless of where the data is stored. Analyze and report against online analytical processing (OLAP) and dimensionally aware relational sources.

Perform complex analysis quickly and easily to get to the "why" behind an event or action to improve business performance.

•  Analyze what's driving your business with data organized in logical categories such as fiscal periods, sales regions and product groups.

•  Move from summary level to transaction level detail or from one PowerCube to another, to find exactly the information you are looking for.

•  Sophisticated time trending with built-in customizable time series lets you analyze what has changed over previous years, quarters, months and other critical measures.

• Explore large complex data sets using drag-and-drop techniques. Drill down through increasing levels of detail and view by different dimensions, such as sales per region or by product.

• View and analyze data relationships graphically and change displays easily. End-users can easily drill down, rank, sort, forecast and nest information to gain greater insight into trends, causes and effects.

•  A common XML-based report format means that a report can be opened in whatever suits a user's needs.

•  User-friendly interface makes multidimensional analysis simple for all users, regardless of their business or technical level.

• Microsoft Windows, Web and Microsoft Excel clients let users work within familiar environments to maximize ROI and reduce training costs.

•  Seamless integration with third-party cubes and OLAP servers lets you maximize return on Oracle, Microsoft, SAP BW and IBM resources you already own, as well as dimensionally modeled relational sources.

Dashboards

Business dashboards communicate complex information quickly. They translate information from your various corporate systems and data into visually rich presentations using gauges, maps, charts and other graphical elements to show multiple results together.

IBM Cognos 8 BI delivers the full range of dashboards—operational, tactical, strategic—to help you monitor, measure and manage corporate performance.

IBM Cognos 8 BI dashboard solutions:

• Function on mobile platforms, on portals and in Microsoft® Office.

• Can be deployed as a standalone application or as a core element of an enterprise business intelligence or performance management platform.

• Offer personalized views of trusted key information.

• Deliver a high degree of visualization with graphs, gauges and charts.

IBM Cognos 8 Go! Dashboard lets you view and interact with trusted Cognos BI content through a dynamic Flash-based interface. Build and edit dynamic and dashboards with drag-and-drop ease.

Scorecarding

Scorecarding helps you align your teams and tactics with strategy, communicate goals consistently, and monitor performance against targets.

Align decisions and tactics with strategy

• Create a metric, diagram or scorecard once and then distribute widely to ensure consistent scorecarding definitions and targets.
  
  
• Use a centralized data store and metrics network to ensure reliable information.

•  Create strategy maps, impact analysis and cause-and-effect diagrams, and other elements of the Balanced Scorecard.

•   Build and deploy scorecards quickly using wizards.

Ensure ownership and accountability for performance

• Assign a primary owner for every metric for greater accountability.
  
  
• Organize and view scorecards by status to focus on objectives and performance.

•  View scorecards in a strategy map to see how they fit into corporate strategy.

•  Set events and alerts to keep you aware of changes in metric status.

•  Embed business intelligence capabilities into your scorecards for added context and analysis.

•  Manage corrective actions and initiatives from within the application.

Share with more user communities

• Use scorecard portlets to access and communicate scorecard content and encourage broader use throughout your organization.

• Populate metrics in any language and then display in users' preferred language.

• Hover over scorecard impact diagrams and instantly receive important metric information for you to act on without having to click anywhere to find it.

•  Add new strategic objectives and supporting metrics to scorecards and strategy maps without assistance from IT.