THE DATA DOWNLOAD

Topics: Business Intelligence, Cognos, Blog, BI Automation

Why Monitoring the Cognos BI Usage Makes Sense.

By:  Matt Caton

At the heart of a strong BI practice is the automation of repetitive tasks, freeing up time to focus on deeper analytics and more advantageous architectures. Cognos BI equips architects with a number of tools for automating report delivery which is often overlooked and done manually. Below are a number of advantages to proactively monitor usage of your Cognos BI reporting system:

• Staying ahead of audits and ensuring software license compliance
• Saving pricey license seats for users who are actually taking advantage of (using) the system
• Having a list of active users to help plan system updates and down-times
• Providing colleagues and managers with important system usage feedback
• System monitoring without even having to log into the system

Topics: Tool Selection, Business Intelligence, Cognos, Blog, Cloud

Business Intelligence Solution: Success or Failure?

How many times have you heard a statistic such as "42 percent of respondents rate a business intelligence solution as moderately successful" or "more than 50 percent of all business intelligence solutions fail"?  When I read these types of statistics I often wonder what's behind these numbers.  I'd love to be able to drill down directly to the respondents and ask them how they defined success or failure when answering the question.  I recently met with a company that asked if I could come in and help make their business intelligence solution more successful.  Naturally, my first question was to ask them how they define success.  Each person in the room defined success a bit differently and meeting turned into a healthy discussion on what constitutes a successful business intelligence solution.

Topics: Tool Selection, Business Intelligence, Cognos, Blog, Cloud

Cloud BI: Five Areas That Can Be Leveraged

In a few weeks I will be presenting 'BI in the Cloud' for Executive Summit at the TDWI Conference in Las Vegas.  Based on my research during the creation of my presentation, I may be one of only a handful of BI practitioners that are excited about the prospects of leveraging the Cloud for Business Intelligence programs (Cloud BI).  I am not sure whether this is because there are still formidable challenges with leveraging Cloud BI or because I spoke to the wrong people.