We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Reporting solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Integration with Office can enable the 'download' mode of storytelling."
"For planning, forecasting, in-boxing, modeling in general and for predicting numbers and doing work analysis, they are excellent."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Cognos is security. The solution has updated features that other competitors' solutions come out with long after IBM Cognos has had them."
"IBM Cognos is an excellent solution for tax, planning, budgeting, profit and loss statements and balance sheets."
"The most valuable features are Report Development (Functionality) and Information Distribution (Flexibility)."
"If they want dashboarding, storytelling, and analyzing why KPIs are met or not, then Cognos is a better candidate than Qlik Sense."
"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."
"I like Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services' automated reporting feature."
"The initial setup is easy."
"I am impressed with the product's seamless integration. It can work with different databases like Oracle."
"It is a stable solution."
"In Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, the installation and configuration are easy."
"The solution's features are all just wrapped up in one nice easy package. I don't need a lot of toolsets to get everything I need done."
"I mainly use the solution for the ease of reporting and for executive dashboards."
"It is scalable."
"There are a lot of limitations with the out-of-the-box tool."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"IBM Cognos's error messages seem to be a bit ambiguous. An error will be encountered and a message will be sent out very ambiguous and after investigating the error message it could be any number of issues. There was never a direct answer to the question or a direct answer to the error messages. Sometimes it would be a generic error message for 21 different solutions. It wasn't very specific, which required a lot of digging around and trial and error trying to fix the problem. The messaging in their error messaging is something needing improvement."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say, monitoring, monitoring, monitoring. Some improvements in monitoring would be helpful. I'd like to see more monitoring of specific reports and fields. The way the auditing is now is very limited, so I'd like to see more of that - of the monitoring."
"There are some small features that are missing. It would be nice if the graphics were better. You can use external sources for charts, but it's quite complex to use and not easy to implement. If you want a new chart, you can download it from multiple tools and implement it into IBM Cognos."
"This product could use improvement in terms of usability for those with less technical know how."
"The charts and graphics are weak."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"The product should improve its performance."
"I would like the solution to add the scheduling feature for reports."
"In this solution, the cost should be reduced for the enterprise edition."
"It doesn't have quite the flexibility of a Tableau or something like that. Many users are more comfortable with Tableau and I'm not quite sure why that is right now, but it seems to be the case."
"We encounter some barriers while trying to build a report."
"Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services needs to improve performance."
"Sometimes, we need to make sure that the configuration stays consistent across the reporting instances. They all connect to the same database. So, it shares that same backend, but the reporting services itself can also be configured. On the application level, for reporting level. And it is, based on my own experience, it is a manual effort to make sure that the reporting servers are configured the same across the environment."
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IBM Cognos is ranked 4th in Reporting with 132 reviews while Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is ranked 8th in Reporting with 15 reviews. IBM Cognos is rated 8.0, while Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of IBM Cognos writes "Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services writes "Offers useful templates but needs to improve the connectivity offered". IBM Cognos is most compared with Microsoft Power BI, Oracle OBIEE, Tableau, SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and Looker, whereas Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is most compared with TIBCO Jaspersoft, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, SAP Crystal Reports and QlikView. See our IBM Cognos vs. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services report.
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We monitor all Reporting reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
