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IBM SoftwareBusiness AnalyticsIBM Cognos Business IntelligenceReporting capabilitiesfrom IBM CognosBusiness Intelligence:Gain insight andoutperformContents2 Drive business value andoutperform3 One reporting solutionfor everyone–– Business users–– Professional reportauthors–– IT administrators7 ConclusionRunning a 21st century company is complex. More data is availablethan ever before; new information is coming online every second. Addto that the forces of globalization and a world that grows increasinglyinterconnected.Yet at the same time, enterprises are operating with bigger blind spots,and they are making important decisions without access to the rightinformation.According to an IBM study, one in three business leaders makedecisions without the information they need. And 53 percent of peopledon’t have access to the data they require to do their jobs.1In a fast interconnecting and complex world, it is no longer sufficient todecide and act based on limited information or traditional timehorizons. New challenges and opportunities require insight and faster,smarter decisions.That means getting complete and consistent information to peoplewhen and how they need it — regardless of their query or reportingrequirements.

IBM SoftwareBusiness AnalyticsIBM Cognos Business IntelligenceThe right solution transforms business intelligence (BI)from a separate place to being part of everything users do.It delivers reporting to frontline workers as well as peopleon the road with mobile, up-to-the-minute access.Reporting capabilities from IBM Cognos BusinessIntelligence address these demands by providing a singlereporting solution everyone can use to answer critical businessquestions. In so doing, it unleashes the collective intelligencewithin your business — so people can make informed decisionsand outperform.As part of the IBM Cognos software family, Cognosreporting enables:Drive business value and outperformFor users, the right reporting software is simply the solutionthat lets them work with information the way they want. It gives people the freedom to think and see what they need tosee. Reports are presented in context so they can makeinformed decisions. And they don’t have to switch tools orlook to others to find answers. Connecting with other users also fuels the exchange of ideasand knowledge. Reporting software should let people shareinformation to accelerate alignment and action, and worktogether towards a common goal.Reporting everyone can use in a BI workspace that sharpensindividual skills to answer key business questionsCollective intelligence with built-in collaboration and socialnetworking to connect people and insights as well as gainorganizational alignmentActionable insight everywhere in mobile, real-time andbusiness processes to instantly respond at the point ofimpactFrom an IT perspective, Cognos reporting reduces the costsand complexity of the reporting environment while deliveringmore for users. It provides people with the information theyneed and drives fact-based, comprehensive business decisions.2

IBM SoftwareBusiness AnalyticsIBM Cognos Business IntelligenceOne reporting solution for everyoneCognos Business Intelligence software fits the reporting needsof all users in your organization — from business users whoneed to create their own ad-hoc queries to professional reportauthors responsible for designing one-to-many reports toIT administrators who must deploy and manage the applicationin a centralized, streamlined manner.Business usersAdvanced reporting software needs to support the full rangeof business users. They all must be able to access content,with the user experience they demand — so they can makedecisions at the speed of business.With Cognos reporting software, business users can author,modify and share reports with minimal training or IT input.The task-based interface reduces the reporting time required,giving people the ability to find insights on their own usingtrusted corporate information.Figure 1: Create reports using any number of report objects—charts, crosstabs and lists, as well as non-BI components using IBM Cognos Workspace.Cognos reporting software gives users an intuitive authoringexperience, so they can arrange information in a way thatmakes sense. It provides self-service capabilities for ad-hocqueries, integrated reporting and analysis, and for viewingmultiple objects in the same workspace.Create, assemble and personalizeBusiness users are looking to answer key business questions.They want to customize how they view and present content,and quickly pull together reports.With search-assisted authoring and extensive data exploration,people can easily find, author, share and collaborate aroundany information they need — in the context of their workday.3

IBM SoftwareBusiness AnalyticsIBM Cognos Business IntelligenceEstablish decision networks to share insightsCognos reporting software provides extended support formobile and touch devices, so workers can access up-to-thesecond information and reports wherever they are.Reporting environments should give users the ability to findthe people and expertise they need — so they can share andrefine their ideas with the right colleagues, partners andcustomers.It also extends the reach to include users who are notconnected to the infrastructure. IBM Cognos Active Reportenables users to access and interact with report and dashboardcontent — whether they are connected to or disconnectedfrom the BI network.Cognos reporting software provides collaborative features tohelp business users communicate and drive better decisions: Comments and annotations: Create and save notes onreports that other people can use and reference, making iteasier to share information and capture valuable insights. Lotus Connections: Facilitate discussions between users formore insightful decisions through integration with LotusConnections. Enhanced event management: Assign owners and approvalprocesses for actions or tasks within the BI workflow.The software also offers integrated access to blogs, wikis andmessage boards — so users can establish decision networks andthreaded discussion areas to drive collaborative decisionmaking. For example: a user publishes a BI report to sharewith peers over the web.Adopt mobile and disconnected BI for broader reachUsers need information about the business, whether they arein the office or on the go. Content should be as accessible on amobile device as it is on a desktop — so all workers areequipped with timely information to make informeddecisions, regardless of location.Figure 2: Users may also view and interact with IBM Cognos Active Reportthrough the iPad native application.4

IBM SoftwareBusiness AnalyticsIBM Cognos Business IntelligenceProfessional report authorsProfessional report authors produce professional qualitycontent for others to consume. They want to dig deeper intothe data and build complex reports.IBM Cognos Active ReportManaged dashboards are often difficult for report authorsto create, and can require coding skills. A steep learningcurve is usually required to master the techniques and createcomposite report applications. It is also difficult to distributeand share these interactive reports unless users areconnected to the system.Reporting solutions should deliver on these requirementswith advanced report building and capabilities thatenable enhancement, customization and management ofprofessional reports.IBM Cognos Active Report provides a rich set of controls,allowing experienced professional report authors to buildinteractive dashboards for the business. The highly visual,intuitive interface lets developers quickly create thesesophisticated report applications.Reporting with Cognos Business Intelligence allowsprofessional report authors to create reports containing afull range of visuals and objects. These include charts, crosstabs and lists, as well as non-BI components such as images,logos and live embedded applications that can be linked tothe information.The software extends the reach of the BI workspace byallowing authors to create reports while disconnected fromthe network. Users can also access dashboards as emailattachments instead of through a web site that requiresnetwork connectivity; they can also take reports with themon their mobile devices, including iPads.The WYSIWYG capability allows report authors to build,interact with, share and analyze results to follow a train ofthought and generate a unique perspective around criticalbusiness information.A collaborative workflow enables authors to create, distributeand share reports with other business users — in differentreport formats, languages and locations.All these capabilities allow organizations to extend theboundaries of traditional reporting, giving professionalauthors unprecedented ways to view and communicatebusiness performance.5

IBM SoftwareBusiness AnalyticsIBM Cognos Business IntelligenceIT administratorsSingle metadata layerAs they strive to decrease the costs and complexity of theirreporting environment, IT administrators have been lookingfor a single, web-based reporting solution that can addressall reporting needs. They require a flexible solution thatleverages existing IT infrastructure, is scalable and has theability to grow.Regardless of the reporting your organization performs,all reporting data passes through a single metadata layercommon to Cognos Business Intelligence. The metadatalayer shields the user from the complexities of the under lying data sources and presents information to themin terms they know and understand.Reporting with Cognos Business Intelligence is that solution.It delivers comprehensive and robust reporting capabilities,for all users and draws on all your data.Multilingual distributionReporting with Cognos Business Intelligence supportsmultiple languages from a single metadata layer. Userscan define which report elements need to adapt to eachrecipient’s working language including the user interfaceand report content.Architecture and data sourcesDesigned for enterprise-level deployment, Cognos BusinessIntelligence offers proven scalability to hundreds of thousandsof users through an N-tiered, multi-server, multithreadedarchitecture. The design provides full failover recovery anddynamic load balancing.These are automatically detected by Cognos BusinessIntelligence and displayed appropriately across supportedlanguages.Bidirectional language supportCognos Business Intelligence provides access to a wide rangeof heterogeneous data sources, reducing the complexity of thereporting environment and giving users an opportunity togain a complete and consistent view of the business.In addition to standard languages, Cognos BusinessIntelligence supports languages that read from right toleft, including Hebrew and Arabic.A streamlined IT environment also lowers costs. Besidesrelational data, users can report against OLAP sources suchas IBM Cognos OLAP cubes, IBM DB2 OLAP, MicrosoftSQL Server Analysis Services and Oracle Essbase. Reportscan draw on any combination of corporate and external datasources to give users a complete view of the business issue.6