IBM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence

Report authoring — FAQs

IT can address the complete breadth of user reporting requirements with business intelligence. IBM Cognos 8 BI provides a complete range of reports in one authoring environment, and supports delivery of content across any consumption media.

  1. How does IBM Cognos 8 BI meet all the reporting needs of the professional report authors in my organization?

    • A complete range of reports. Present Information in the most effective way to get the answers you need. Includes managed reporting, ad-hoc queries, production reporting, dashboards, analytical reporting, and express authoring. Whatever the need, users can publish their own way.
    • Scorecarding. Create scorecards to ensure alignment, increase focus, and ensure ownership and accountability across the organization. Users can track progress against plan. They gain an at-a-glance view of performance against targets, and can drill through to underlying details.
    • Analysis. Professional report authors are successful when users get fast answers to business questions. They can analyze large volumes of OLAP or relational data, and compare business performance across multiple dimensions (time, product, customer).

  2. Can you use IBM Cognos 8 BI to create an environment where business users leverage the tools and information they need in one authoring environment?

    • Zero-footprint, Web-based. Supports business users wherever they work, in any location.
    • Intuitive, browser-based interface. Users can easily create reports by dragging and dropping data and format elements onto the page. No database logic or programming is required.
    • Go! Search. Integration with enterprise search engines allows users to quickly find related company reports and information.
    • A single metadata layer. Apply common business rules, dimensions, and calculations to all reporting data - so users build reports based on a single, consistent view of information.
    • Heterogeneous data support. Gain a complete view of business information, so users spend less time gathering or reconciling data. They can explore any data including relational, dimensional, flat files, and XML.

  3. How can users distribute reports and information to consumers in different formats and locations?

    • Delivery to any consumer media. Users can publish information to any media without re-authoring - BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian devices, MS Office, PDAs, third-party portals, or Web pages.
    • Multilingual reporting. Authors can create a single report, and deploy in more than 25 languages. Cognos, an IBM company, is locale-sensitive, with full Unicode support.
    • Event-driven BI. Automates the detection, management, and communication of time-critical business events or issues. IT can set alerts and deliver information to decision-makers anywhere.
    • Bursting capabilities. Reports can be distributed quickly and efficiently to a mass audience in multiple output formats, destinations, and views.

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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.