IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence

Consuming reports - FAQs

With IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence, IT can support the business by enabling users to explore, analyze, and share information. The solution adapts to the user environment, so everyone has the same quality content and capabilities regardless of location. With IBM Cognos 8 BI, more business users have the right information where, when, and how they need it to make the best decisions.

  1. How can BI meet the needs of all users in my organization?

    • Executives: Executives demand information that is highly summarized and bears direct relevance to their key initiatives. With managed dashboards in IBM Cognos 8 BI they get a summarized view of key metrics, key reports, alerts, and more. Other key features include briefing books that provide easy to navigate, multi-style, multi-page reports, and IBM Cognos 8 Go! Mobile, which enables these same reports and dashboards to be viewed on a mobile device.
    • Business managers: With accountability for the success of key initiatives, managers need both a high level view and an ability to delve into operational details. IBM Cognos 8 BI delivers a full range of enterprise reports that meet the needs of all business managers. For example:
      • Managed reports that are specific to an area of business can be automatically scheduled and sent to managers.
      • Analytical reports that let users see trends at the macro level and drill into information from various sources.
    • Analysts: Analysts and managers with P&L responsibility need to go beyond basic reporting to understand correlations in the data. IBM Cognos 8 BI provides deep, comparative analytic capabilities that enable users to perform both simple and complex analysis quickly. And, with IBM Cognos 8 BI Analysis for Excel analysts can leveraging full Excel interaction to support analysis, calculations, data, and formatting.
    • Financial analysts and power users: Financial analysis need to centrally author and distribute statement - style reports to the rest of the organization. New in IBM Cognos 8 BI version 8.3 is express authoring capabilities that streamline this task.
    • Casual users: Casual business users can request or subscribe to regularly scheduled and preformatted reports that provide only the information they need when they need it.

  2. Is it easy for people to find the right information? Does the software support user self-service?

    • Information their way: Business users will only use BI if it is presented in a format they can understand. IBM Cognos 8 BI offers a broad range of information display styles, including briefing books, dashboards, scorecards, static reports, Excel spreadsheets, and PDF displays that cater to different types of information and different user styles.
    • Right-time BI: Good decisions are made when reports and analysis are delivered at the right time. Personal alerts in IBM Cognos 8 BI allow users to subscribe to reports and choose what they want to see and when.
    • Access to BI anywhere: BI needs to be delivered to users wherever they live and however they work. IBM Cognos 8 BI presents information in to users in context and in their environments, locales, and applications. This includes sharing information via the Web, mobile devices, extranets, portals, search engines, Word, Excel, and more.
    • End-user self-service: Intuitive ad-hoc query capabilities and Web-based analysis means users can build reports and get fast answers to their questions.

  3. How can business users access relevant information wherever and whenever they want?

    • Find information faster—guided analysis, event management, and integrated search helps users find information quickly.
    • Share information easily—Users can share BI information through the Cognos portal, enterprise portals, emails, and more to help share best practices and promote collaboration.
    • Save time—One-click functions such as undo, top 10, and more guide users to the answers they need.

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Additional Resources:


IBM Cognos 8 BI Demo: Data Modeler Module
Online Demo
Data Modeler Module of the IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence demo
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IBM Cognos 8 BI Demo: System Administrator Module
Online Demo
System Administrator Module of the IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence demo.
IBM Cognos 8 BI Demo: BI Professional Module
Online Demo
See Maps, PDF, and run-time prompting
IBM Cognos 8 BI Demo: Employee Module
Online Demo
Employee Module of the IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence demo.
The Right Architecture for Business Intelligence: The Foundation for Effective Enterprise BI
White Paper
Read why the right architecture is a key factor in successful BI deployments and how the single, open IBM Cognos 8 BI architecture can reduce IT workload, improve productivity, and make better use of your IT budget.