We performed a comparison between IBM Cognos, Microsoft Power BI, and Tableau based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Tableau, Oracle and others in Reporting."Self-service is possible through the use of dashboards, which are also very intuitive. Stories can be used to pin snapshots, tell the story for meetings, etc."
"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."
"It is a stable product."
"Using custom controls, it is possible to extend the application with even more functionality and make the application intuitive and attractive."
"A positive feature is Report Studio, where we create beautiful, complex reports."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"We are able to generate quality reports easily which allows us to decrease response time."
"IBM Cognos improves the effectiveness of the sales team."
"Data integration is very useful in Power BI. It lets me collect data from many sources. For example, I can get data from Oracle databases and SQL Server databases at the same time."
"Power BI is more powerful than other tools because it is new for us. Each new version has more capabilities, and we're expecting AI and ML features in the next version."
"It's a straightforward setup."
"Ease of development and maintenance."
"The ease of integration and connectivity stands out as the most critical aspect, followed closely by the flexibility to customize reports and dashboards."
"The tool is very flexible so it allows creativity."
"The user experience is easy. Users get familiar with it quickly."
"Reporting is the best thing about Power BI. And it could help improve decision-making in many ways. Power BI is flexible and easier to use compared to tools."
"I consider Tableau to be the best analytical tool available. It's really handy to use and can be used by non-technical people."
"This solution has improved insights into quantitative data."
"It is very easy to implement and to use."
"I love the customization skills that Tableau has, it is not restricted to what is built-in already."
"When compared to Power BI, Tableau has more readily available resources."
"Tableau is an advanced specialized tool. One of the best features I've seen is the lack of an intermediate semantic layer. I think that's an advantage compared to any other tool like BusinessObjects or Power BI, which are Tableau's biggest competitors."
"The solution deployment was straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the geographic data analysis."
"I would like to have predictive and forecasting capabilities in Cognos. It's one thing to do reporting, and another thing to easily predict or forecast certain data points, which is very important for all the clients."
"I would like for the platform to become more standard. If we make a development on our report and our dashboard, it will not be used in another solution. That means there is no portability for the developers."
"One thing that we really want is the ability to have data portrayed on an image. Cognos is not able to do it at the moment, and that's becoming a requirement from the business side: having an image and then plotting your dataset on top of the image as a map."
"It would be better if it is was easier to implement without extensive training for it."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"Compared to Tableau and PowerBI, the IBM interface is easier to use. However, the drag-and-drop functionality isn't as straightforward. Formatting is also more challenging in the cloud than in other applications, like Power BI. Also, if you encounter an issue, it takes more time to resolve it on the formatting side."
"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."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
"The solution struggles with large amounts of data."
"The product’s on-premise reporting servers could support real-time data refreshing capabilities like its on-cloud version."
"It needs more graphics and overlays."
"I would like to be able to use more predicting data science features without having to use R."
"Better mapping capabilities and easier administration access would be beneficial, especially for understanding who has viewed reports."
"I have been doing trial and error to figuring out how to do the data analyzing and modeling. There could be some improvement to simplify it."
"Power BI's drillthrough feature could be improved. I didn't like drillthrough and those options much, but I did like it in MicroStrategy."
"Our expectation is putting BI to work in real-time data collection systems in the maritime environment."
"It is not so great when it comes to data exchange/integration, data mining, etc."
"The data entered into Tableau must be clean. Otherwise, it won't work properly."
"When you create new fields in Tableau and you enter the formulas, there is a new small window that is there in the interface. You can enter the calculated fields, it could be more user-friendly. At this time it is limited and hard to understand at the beginning. The fields should be easier to use, such as in Microsoft Excel. You can have a difficult time understanding what to do in the fields, you end up doing trial and error to figure it out."
"I would like to be able to set the parameters in a more specific manner."
"Improvements in schema security and row/column security need to be made."
"Creating empty extracts is not easy."
"The tool's OpenAI integration was announced last year. However, it is late. Tableau is a good solution for end customers. However, there are some concerns regarding the stability and performance of its server architecture, including SaaS services. The server side appears unstable, and performance issues are noticeable, often accompanied by unclear error messages."
"Tableau's data modeling, mining, and AI library features need improvement."
