IBM Cognos Analytics
Advanced Business Intelligence With AI
Powered by Artificial Intelligence, IBM Cognos Analytics offers a seamless and intuitive user experience. Designed for businesses of all sizes, it delivers eye-catching dashboards, interactive visualisations, pixel-perfect reports and future projections.
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What is Cognos?
IBM Cognos Analytics is a set of business intelligence tools available on cloud or on-premise. The primary focus is in the area of Descriptive Analytics, to help users see the information in your data through dashboards, professional reporting and self-service data exploration.
The latest version of IBM Cognos Analytics is 12.0. IBM Cognos Analytics 12.0 introduces significant advancements over its predecessor, Cognos 11.1, with a strong emphasis on AI-driven capabilities, improved performance, and enhanced user experience. One of the key upgrades is the integration of an AI Assistant on the welcome page, allowing users to interact with their data using natural language queries. Additionally, fuzzy search functionality has been enhanced to improve search accuracy, making it easier to locate reports and dashboards even with minor typing errors. These AI-driven enhancements make data analysis more accessible and intuitive for business users.
Performance optimisations in Cognos 12.0 further differentiate it from version 11.1. The introduction of the Interactive Performance Assistant (IPA) provides system performance insights, enabling IT teams to fine-tune reports and dashboards for better efficiency. Additionally, local caching options complement server-side caching, reducing load times for frequently accessed dashboards. These improvements not only enhance the speed of the platform but also ensure a smoother and more responsive experience for users working with large datasets.
The user interface and visualisation tools in Cognos 12.0 have also received upgrades, building upon the foundations set by Cognos 11.1. The introduction of nested dashboard widgets allows for a more organised and layered data presentation, while improved legends, axis positioning, and custom icons enhance visualisation clarity. Furthermore, new system health audit reports give administrators deeper insights into performance bottlenecks, allowing for proactive system maintenance.
Types of Licenses
Cognos Analytics is available either on Cloud (hosted or on-demand on IBM Cloud or Amazon AWS Marketplace), on premise or as a cartridge for IBM Cloud Pak for Data.
Licenses are controlled via roles as shown below.
| License role | Description |
| Analytics Administrators | Members have the same access permissions as Analytics Explorers. They can also access IBM Software Development Kit; and components in the Manage menu, including IBM Cognos Administration. |
| Analytics Explorers | Members have the same access permissions as Analytics Users. They can also access Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel, Cognos Framework Manager, Cognos Cube Designer and Dynamic Query Analyzer, Jupyter Notebook, and Transformer. |
| Analytics Users | Members can create new Reports, Dashboards, Explorations, Stories, New Jobs, Data Server/Source Connections, or Data Modules. They can execute reports, respond to prompts, upload files, and view generated SQL or MDX query text. They can also access Cognos for Microsoft Office, and Cognos Event Studio. |
| Analytics Viewer | Members can read public content. For example, they can subscribe to reports and view dashboards and stories. However, members cannot execute public content. Therefore, they cannot schedule reports. |
| Analytics for Mobile User | Members can use the Cognos Analytics Mobile app to create and consume pin boards, receive alerts, use the Assistant, browse content, and open dashboards or explorations. They can also scan a QR code from the desktop to authenticate into the app. |
Please contact us for pricing. We may be able to negotiate better terms and pricing through our IBM relationship and incentives available.
IBM Cognos Analytics Features
The main features of Cognos Analytics can be found in the FAQs below. Here are some of the advanced features offered by Cognos Analytics 12.0:
- AI-Powered Assistant – A natural language AI assistant integrated into the welcome page, allowing users to explore data and generate insights quickly through conversational queries.
- Fuzzy Search Enhancements – Improved search functionality that recognises typos and similar terms, ensuring more accurate and relevant search results.
- Interactive Performance Assistant (IPA) – A system monitoring tool that logs performance data, helping IT teams analyse and optimise report and dashboard execution speeds.
- Local Caching for Dashboards – Enhances performance by storing frequently accessed data locally, reducing load times and improving user experience.
- Nested Dashboard Widgets – Allows users to embed tabs within tabs for better data organisation and multi-layered insights within a single dashboard.
- Advanced Data Visualisations – Improved chart legends, axis positioning, and custom icons enhance the clarity and effectiveness of visual analytics.
- Geospatial Mapping Enhancements – Expanded mapping capabilities, allowing users to visualise location-based data with greater precision and interactive controls.
- System Health Audit Reports – Provides IT administrators with detailed reports on system performance, enabling proactive maintenance and troubleshooting.
- Streamlined User Interface – A cleaner, more intuitive design that simplifies navigation, making it easier for users to create and interact with reports and dashboards.
- Extended API and Integration Support – Improved support for external APIs, enabling seamless integration with other business intelligence tools and enterprise systems.
Cognos Analytics Training
If you want to get started with IBM Cognos Analytics or want to upskill your team, we offer a range of Cognos Analytics courses to help you get the most out of your data.
> See our Full list of Cognos courses
Tour de France
In 2018, we ran a social media campaign, presenting some interesting insights within the data from the Tour de France; such as a ‘timeline of past distances & times’, a ‘timeline of average speeds from 1903-2017’ and a ‘results overview by decade’. We used IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1 on cloud to generate the imagery for the campaign as shown below:
See demo video using IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1
Support for Older Versions
Below is a summary of earlier versions of Cognos BI products and tools.
| Date | Version | Comment | End of Support |
| 2023 | IBM Cognos Analytics 12.0 | The current version of Cognos | |
| 2021 | IBM Cognos Analytics 11.2 | Adopted Carbon, the IBM open source design system for digital products and experiences. | 30 April 2026 |
| 2018 | IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1 | Bringing diagnostic analytics capabilities to the forefront. | 30 April 2024 |
| 2015 | IBM Cognos Analytics 11 | Redesign of the user experience | 30 September 2021 |
| 2010 | IBM Cognos Analytics 10 | Introduced social collaboration | 30 April 2018 |
| 2009 | IBM Cognos 8 Express | Lighter version, aimed at mid-size companies | |
| 2005 | IBM Cognos 8 BI | Brought a wide range of capabilities into one product (Report studio, Query studio, Framework Manager and more) | 30 September 2013 |
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