Cognos Analytics vs Orbit Analytics

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Our analysts compared Cognos Analytics vs Orbit Analytics based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Business Intelligence Tools, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Cognos Analytics Software Tool

Product Basics

IBM Cognos Analytics is a self-service, web-based analytics platform which empowers users of all skill levels to explore data through reporting, data analytics, KPI monitoring, events and metrics. Reports give users the ability to not just visualize their insights, but also share them with colleagues.

It integrates with Watson Analytics, which leverages IBM’s artificial intelligence and natural language processing to make insights more accessible to non-technical users. It has various components which give additional functionality, flexibility and agility when processing large sets of data.
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Orbit, which stands for Operational Reporting and Business Intelligence Technology, provides self-service advanced analytics to businesses for on-demand, data-driven decision-making. It pulls data from a wide range of sources, including Microsoft Excel, and enables high-performance data analysis through visualization and reporting. Connecting to more than 200 business applications, it ensures data integrity and security compliance across platforms.

Leveraging R for statistical computing, it empowers businesses to make accurate and timely business decisions.
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$50/User, Monthly
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$50,000 Monthly
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Product Insights

  • Enhanced Decision Making: Cognos Analytics synthesizes data from various sources, providing comprehensive insights that empower users to make informed, data-driven decisions.
  • Time Efficiency: Automates the process of data collection and report generation, significantly reducing the time spent on these tasks and allowing teams to focus on analysis and strategy.
  • Customizable Dashboards: Offers the flexibility to create personalized dashboards that highlight key metrics, making it easier for users to access the information most relevant to their roles and objectives.
  • Scalability: Adapts to the growing data needs of a business, ensuring that as your company expands, Cognos Analytics can handle the increasing volume and complexity of data.
  • Data Accuracy: Minimizes human error by automating data collection and analysis, leading to more accurate insights and reducing the risk of costly mistakes.
  • Collaboration Enhancement: Facilitates better teamwork by providing a shared platform where team members can access, analyze, and discuss data insights in real-time.
  • Advanced Analytics: Utilizes AI and machine learning to uncover deep insights, predict trends, and identify patterns that might not be apparent through traditional analysis methods.
  • Comprehensive Reporting: Generates detailed reports that can be customized to suit different audiences, ensuring stakeholders receive the information they need in an understandable format.
  • Mobile Accessibility: Offers mobile support that allows users to access data and insights on the go, ensuring decision-makers are always informed, regardless of their location.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Helps ensure that data management practices comply with relevant regulations and standards, reducing the risk of legal issues and fines.
  • Cost Reduction: By streamlining data analysis processes and reducing the need for manual intervention, Cognos Analytics can lead to significant cost savings over time.
  • Improved Customer Insights: Analyzes customer data to provide a deeper understanding of customer behavior and preferences, enabling more targeted and effective marketing strategies.
  • Operational Efficiency: Identifies bottlenecks and inefficiencies in operations, allowing organizations to optimize processes for better performance and productivity.
  • Future-Proofing: Continuously updates to incorporate the latest technologies and analytics trends, ensuring that businesses remain competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
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  • Improved Business Decisions: Drive innovation, boost efficiencies and increase revenue through better-informed business decisions. Identify opportunities and spot data trends by surfacing accurate and updated information. Analyze past insights to uncover previously undiscovered data relationships and define future strategy. 
  • Data Integration: Connects out-of-the-box to more than 200 applications like Oracle E-Business Suite, MS-Excel, PeopleSoft, Microsoft Office, Taleo, Salesforce and more. Breaks down data silos to aggregate information from a multitude of disparate data sources. Pulls data from cloud-based, on-premise and hybrid databases. 
  • Advanced Analytics: Forecast business trends by using what-if analyses, scenario modeling and decision trees. Discover patterns, relationships and outliers in data to make informed decisions. Pull data from disparate sources for multidimensional predictive analysis through crosstabs and other visualization types. 
  • Ad-Hoc Reporting: Get answers to data questions faster through its intelligent query generator. Gain in-depth, real-time data insights through easy drag-and-drop, filtering and slice-and-dice actions. Add visual context to reporting insights with geospatial data relationships and plan ahead. 
  • Tell Data Stories: Create visually compelling, interactive data visualizations from proprietary information, unifying disparate data sets into one single dashboard. Display complex information through simple visuals like charts, maps and graphs and easily digestible dashboard summaries. Share visualizations with others by embedding into business applications and exporting to PDFs. 
  • Cloud BI: Reduce the cost of ownership through a flexible cloud solution that combines enterprise-class analytics with an autonomous data warehouse. Integrates with existing on-premise and cloud-based data sources to deliver real-time reporting and analytics. 
  • Data Security: Secures data through built-in row and column-level access permissions based on roles. Automatically syncs with business applications and aligns with pre-existing security rules, account profiles and team member roles. 
  • Deploy Anywhere: Deploys on-premise, in the cloud and in hybrid solutions. 
  • Mobility: View and share mobile-optimized dashboards and reports on the go. Create custom reports, or build from more than 1,000 pre-built templates to share business insights with others. Click on dashboard objects like charts and graphs to drill down into proprietary data for deeper insight. 
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  • Components: Boost the feature set of the core platform with components that enhance data modeling, visualization and analytics capabilities. 
  • Powerful Reporting: Create detailed charts, graphs, maps, voiceovers and repeat functions with the robust, professional reporting suite. Simplify reporting for non-technical users with express mode. 
  • Web-based Interface: Access the platform on any hardware via the web.
  • Natural Language-powered AI: Interrogate data and receive natural, consistent responses with a built-in AI, powered by NLP. 
  • Automated Modeling: Verify and combine data via automated modeling, and assess relationships between separate data points. 
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  • Reporting: Create reports from more than 1,000 pre-built reporting templates or build custom ones. Aggregate data from multiple sources and combine it into pixel-perfect reports. Create document templates within Word and Excel, and then add data and publish in Excel, HTML or PDF formats for sharing. 
  • Integrate with Excel: Upload data as Excel files to perform ad-hoc data analysis through easy drag-and-drop actions. Filter specific data fields or slice and dice to view pertinent business metrics. Or, pull live data directly into Excel from one or more business applications and run multiple reports at the same time. 
  • Data Modeling: Build models through associative querying and aggregation of multi-dimensional data through Star Schema and Snowflake queries. Get data insights from OLAP cubes and third-party data sources with customizable options for deeper analysis. 
  • Metadata Management: Customize, reuse, capture and publish data dimensions, hierarchies, performance metrics, KPIs and report layout parameters. Store key metadata objects separately from application databases, enabling faster retrieval, when needed. 
  • Integration with Python and R: Create analytical models from live data by using R and Python. The R Statistics and Python libraries are embedded within its BI server. 
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Product Ranking

#12

among all
Business Intelligence Tools

#373

among all
Business Intelligence Tools

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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Orbit Analytics
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Advanced Analytics Augmented Analytics Data Management Data Pre-processing Data Transformation Data Visualization Embedded Analytics Capabilities Geospatial Visualizations And Analysis Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting 87 59 96 85 90 100 84 58 77 91 100 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 1251 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 4 reviews
81%
of users recommend this product

Cognos Analytics has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 81% when considering 1251 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

95%
of users recommend this product

Orbit Analytics has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 95% when considering 4 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

3.9 (306)
4.8 (3)
4.1 (120)
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4.3 (358)
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4.0 (467)
4.5 (1)

Awards

we're gathering data

Orbit Analytics stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Data Analysis and Visualization: All users who mention data analysis and presentation unanimously agree that this solution covers the full spectrum of BI analytics capabilities.
Data management: All users who mention data preparation praise its data integrations and effective metadata management, which ensure data consistency and accuracy across multiple reporting systems.
Functionality: Of users who mentioned this platform’s features, around 90% were satisfied with regular updates and enhancements which allow them to create faster, more responsive dashboards.
Reporting: Around 89% of users who mention reporting are satisfied, appreciating its ad-hoc reporting and report-sharing capabilities.
Setup: Excellent vendor support coupled with the ease of establishing data connectivity with data sources make installation of this solution a breeze, as approximately 87% of users have mentioned.
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Free to Use: Orbit is free for everyone to use, which makes it a great option for businesses of all sizes.
Easy to Set Up: Orbit is easy to set up and use, even for users who are not familiar with web analytics. Users have praised the platform for its intuitive design and straightforward implementation process.
Comprehensive Data: Orbit provides a comprehensive view of website traffic, including page views, unique visitors, bounce rate, and more. This data can be used to track website performance and identify areas for improvement.
Customizable Reports: Orbit allows users to create custom reports to track the specific metrics that are most important to them. This flexibility is highly valued by users who need tailored insights.
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Cost: Around 87% of users who mention cost feel that its licensing model is expensive when compared to other BI solutions.
Training: Approximately 45% of users who reviewed training say that the learning curve can be quite steep and though self-service training is available, they would prefer a formal learning program.
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Sampling Issues: For high-traffic websites, Orbit Analytics may extrapolate data based on a subset, leading to potential inaccuracies in metrics like bounce rate or session duration.
Limited Real-Time Reporting: Orbit Analytics doesn't offer truly real-time data updates, making it less suitable for situations demanding immediate insights, such as monitoring the impact of a flash sale.
Complex Interface: Some users find the interface overwhelming, especially those new to web analytics or accustomed to more user-friendly tools.
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IBM Cognos Analytics is an excellent BI tool and rates very highly with users on all major counts. Users are unanimous in their praise of its data management and data analysis capabilities to provide a single source of truth. Having ventured into AI-powered tools with the 11.1.3 version in 2018, IBM is making bold strides to incorporate augmented intelligence into the platform. IBM has astutely combined this solution with the capabilities of one of its other offerings, Watson Analytics, for natural language processing - a game-changer for empowering non-technical users to create a vast range of dashboards. With AI-enabled exploration, users can review key drivers of metrics and identify gaps in data, though some users feel that more tools are needed for content store exploration through its relational database. It also rates excellently with users for its data integration and ad-hoc reporting capabilities, efficient metadata management and extensive data modeling features. Several strong features of this platform, as noted by reviewers, include Jupyter notebooks, regular updates to the platform and enhancements to data modules, though when it comes to integrating with Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) data sources and IBM Planning Analytics in particular, it comes up short. Version 11 of the platform comes with over-the-top installs for upgrades, which reduces time to set up; though some users feel that integrations built with the current SDK solution can be tedious to implement and maintain. Being part of the IBM software suite, it connects seamlessly to other IBM products under the same umbrella. However, integration with MS-Sharepoint is not supported; this can be managed with workarounds, but only for on-premise setups, not cloud-based deployments. The platform has a rich reporting repertoire with report burst capabilities, pivots and Cognos Event Studio for event-driven reports. However, many users feel that Report Studio should provide the write back capability, which is crucial for business. As for the cost, a majority of users feel that its licensing models are restrictive, especially when compared to other BI solutions; though the vendor seems to address pricing and ease of use with version 11.1.3. In summary, Cognos Analytics is among the best BI solutions in the market today and IBM, with its ear to the ground, is delivering enhanced data analysis and reporting capabilities at scale.

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Is Orbit Analytics the business intelligence software that will make your insights truly out of this world? Users praise Orbit Analytics for its user-friendly interface, making it easy for even non-techy folks to grasp. They also dig its robust reporting features, which help them whip up insightful reports that actually make sense. One user raved about how Orbit Analytics helped them wrangle a massive dataset into a clear and concise report that impressed higher-ups. However, some users find its predictive analytics capabilities a bit lacking compared to competitors like Tableau or Power BI. They wish it had more advanced forecasting tools to get a better handle on future trends. Overall, Orbit Analytics seems like a good fit for businesses who need a straightforward, user-friendly platform to analyze their data and create reports. If you're looking for cutting-edge predictive analytics, you might want to explore other options.

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