Cognos Planning 7.3 Review

OLAP REPORT REVIEW: Cognos Planning 7.3

Author: Nigel Pendse Released: 2005 Pages: 31 Single User Price: $895 USD An in-depth product evaluation and rating The top-down and bottom-up planning and budgeting system formerly called Adaytum Planning Those looking for financial planning software that provide a good level of usability, with rich web and Excel data capture, plus good multi-user capabilities, will want to evaluate the features and functionality of Cognos Planning. The product is part of the corporate performance management portfolio from one of the two largest, independent business intelligence vendors in the market. Unlike many other OLAP products, there are some unusual architectural features that give Cognos Planning a range of advantages, while imposing some limitations. Thirty-one pages of detailed evaluation describe the functionality and features of Cognos Planning. Unlike other IT-targeted products in the Cognos portfolio, Cognos Planning is aimed primarily at the financial community. The current planning product is based on Adaytum's software, acquired by Cognos in 2002. Cognos Planning comes in two versions: The older Analyst product, a client-based solution based on an idiosyncratic non client-server architecture, and Contributor, a newer web-based solution. In both cases, all the modeling is performed locally on the PC which guarantees rapid results and avoids the dangers of slow response because of network logjams. The OLAP Report's assessment of Cognos Planning gives the software high rating for its performance in several areas: Speed and performance are exceptionally good - not least, because of the ability of both Analyst and Contributor to operate on disconnected machines. Several financial capabilities such as budget balancing and financial calculations earn high scores. But in other respects, Cognos Planning underperforms the competition, or requires additional programming to implement features available out-of-the-box from other vendors. Use the review to determine how well Cognos Planning matches your particular financial planning requirements. A sample of the numerous specially generated screenshots from this review. Click to enlarge.

Contents: Vendor overview Product commercial issues Database structure and capacity Architecture and platforms Data entry functionality Calculation functionality Built-in Functions Break-back Reporting flexibility Automatic detection of exceptions Time series intelligence Currency support Security and DBMS issues End-user human factors Application building features Performance Conclusions and scores Ask a question about this product? Other customers also purchased: Hyperion BPM Suite Review Applix TM1 Review The Importance of Free Form Reporting Analysis Email a colleague about this product

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