Question: I've been mandated to find out what [IBM Cognos](http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/?pgel=ibmhzn&cm_re=masthead-_-products-_-sw-cognos) does, and I cannot find useful information on the subject apart what I can read from the IBM Website and [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognos).

What I'm after is some concrete examples of what Cognos can do for businesses and organisations that intend to use it.

Answer: 
Financial Performance Management I have no idea about but we use BI 8.4/10.1 quite a bit. The Cognos product line is actually quite large and we only really use the baseline BI stuff with Framework Manager but I'll try and help you out, based on how *we* use it.

Think of BI itself as an application that lets you view your data in *many* different ways. Now so far, it's no different to Jasper Reports or BIRT (which, despite its name, appears to provide very little BI stuff).

It does this by modelling the data (models are created with Framework Manager hence why we use it over and above the standard reporting interface) to translate raw data into business data and also relational to dimensional data if your database isn't already dimensional.

It's this business view of the data combined with the dimensionality which allows really neat manipulation within Cognos BI.

You can create reports in a truly multi-dimensional way, aggregating data in various ways across things like dates, products, geographical regions, stores, divisions and so on (depending on your dimensional setup).

All of the reports are really dynamic in that you can collapse or expand individual dimensions at will so, if for example you want to drill down on a poorly-performing state to see which individual stores in that state are causing problems, it's a simple click on an icon.

No re-querying of the data, everything just *happens* in very quick time. And the charts and data that can be produced are very nice.

And, on top of that, Cognos BI comes with an inbuilt query studio and report studio which allow the creation of ad-hoc reports in the exact same interface the user sees when running standard reports. No more of the Eclipse-Designer/Web-App separation that we had to endure with BIRT.

Sorry if this sounds evangelistic but we're transitioning from BIRT to Cognos BI, and the difference is substantial.

Now you may not find a *lot* of information outside of the IBM website, although we did find a couple of dedicated sites when we first started examining the transition. Unfortunately, I don't have them available any more since the IBM information is more than adequate.

We also make a lot of use of the [IBM developerWorks forums](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/tivoli_forums.jspa) (we use Tivoli Common Reporting which ships with the Cognos runtimes) and the [microsite](http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/whats-new/?mc=-web_googlesearch_microsite_c10) as well. As well as the forums, there's a [whole section of developerWorks](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/products/cognos/index.html) dedicated to Cognos.
A bit late, but for the benefit of anyone browsing ... Cognos BI is essentially web based reporting/ dashboarding/ analytics. Historically it connected to relational databases only; from v8.4 onwards (and moreso from v10) it also connects to OLAP cube data sources. It's designed for end user self service reporting and includes mobile as well as web connectivity.

Cognos FPM provides in-server memory OLAP cube modelling (based on the TM1 engine). A key point of difference is that it permits end-user writeback and is generally used for budgeting and 'what-if' scenario modelling. Modelling is facilitated by Rules, which enable data modification. It also scales to the max. As noted above it may be integrated to Cognos BI (as well as being stand-alone), which means that a single dashboard may include reports from both relational & OLAP sources, and provide planning. So it's very powerful.

Note that Cognos Express provides essentially the same tools for the midmarket.