Cognos does have better features and is more versatile but it also requires technical resources which were hard to find. Most developers are average and nobody was able to make self-service BI which resulted in inferior results. Power BI is easier to use even if it provides less results overall and average resources are sufficient for it.

An unfortunate outcome of Microsoft evangelism and indoctrination in offices and college and high school classrooms.  Power BI continues to have more and more followers even though it is inferior to products like Cognos Analytics.

I've seen this myself.  I have had complaints that people want Power BI instead of Cognos because Cognos changes too often.  A little confusing for me based on facts:  I upgrade Cognos every 2 years.  The last upgrade and the next have little that users notice.  So no noticeable change for most users for at least 4 years.  Meanwhile, Power BI changes every month.  I've seen step-by-step instructions written 3 weeks ago that can no longer be followed.  I've also seen that reports created this month can't be opened in last month's Power BI Desktop.  So it's clear that people make that decision based on religious preference, not based on actual product capabilities.

As far as I know, Cognos is now almost dead, killed by Power BI, in spite of licensing cost going down so user groups won't really matter anymore. The only companies who now use Cognos are the ones who have applications sold to them by vendors who have BI made in Cognos and who have not migrated yet (Ex: Deltek who sells their ERP along with a BI made using Cognos without a Data Warehouse - the worst BI I have ever seen)

Hello everyone,

I'm new to IBM Cognos Controller, and this is my very first installation on our server. I've followed the official IBM documentation for setup, but I've run into two issues that I can't resolve.

Problem 1 – Controller Client
When I launch the classic Controller client, I receive the following error:


The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.
   at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.ReadResponse(SoapClientMessage message, WebResponse response, Stream responseStream, Boolean asyncCall)
   at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters)
   at Cognos.Controller.ControllerSoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodname, Object[] parameters)
   at Cognos.Controller.Proxy.Light.WSLight.CheckServerConnection(String sGuid, String sUser)
   at Cognos.Controller.Direct.ServerInfoD.CheckServerConnection()
   at CCR.AppContext.CheckConnectionToServer()


Problem 2 – Controller Web
When I access Controller Web in the browser at http://localhost:9085, I get a login popup. After entering the credentials, it refreshes and shows the same login screen again in a continuous loop.

Popup message:
The server is initializing, or the session has expired.
Please refresh the page in the web browser or log in.


Additional context:

The environment already has Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics running successfully.

Has anyone experienced these issues during a fresh installation? Any guidance or troubleshooting steps would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Wondering what are the things one has to learn if someone wants to be an AI professional. Some research shows that Python knowledge is expected. Apart from this, can anybody suggest what are the other things to learn?   

Quote from: hamlet on 06 Aug 2025 02:17:14 PMI have a simple report (in report studio), version 11.2.4. A few columns have quantity or dollar amounts (all numbers).  The user requirement is that they want to export the report in excel data format and the number columns need to be in the excel format 'Number' (not excel format 'general').  So far easy enough, but then there is a second requirement: they also want to have the number values to have no commas for the thousands separator.  I can't figure out how to satisfy both of these requirements.  In Cognos I set format to 'Number' and set thousands separator = 'No'.  But that does not transfer over to excel, it comes in as excel format 'Number' WITH the thousands separator. 

I tried to convert the number to a character string, this satisfies requirement #2 (removes comma) but does not satisfy requirement #1 (excel format = number).

Any ideas on this?

There are some limitations on what formatting options in a Cognos report Excel supports, including the decimal and group separators in numbers. In short, I don't think you can do this easily. One option might be to fire a macro after the Excel output has been generated, but this wouldn't take into account people rendering the reports interactively.

Details of the formatting restrictions are below:

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-analytics/11.2.x?topic=format-unsupported-cognos-analytics-watson-formatting

Cheers!

MF.

I have a simple report (in report studio), version 11.2.4. A few columns have quantity or dollar amounts (all numbers).  The user requirement is that they want to export the report in excel data format and the number columns need to be in the excel format 'Number' (not excel format 'general').  So far easy enough, but then there is a second requirement: they also want to have the number values to have no commas for the thousands separator.  I can't figure out how to satisfy both of these requirements.  In Cognos I set format to 'Number' and set thousands separator = 'No'.  But that does not transfer over to excel, it comes in as excel format 'Number' WITH the thousands separator. 

I tried to convert the number to a character string, this satisfies requirement #2 (removes comma) but does not satisfy requirement #1 (excel format = number).

Any ideas on this?

Quote from: MFGF on 31 Jul 2025 11:53:39 AMIt looks like the attachment was stripped off the post - probably when the forum moved a few years ago. Let me ask Lynn if she still has it. It was posted over 10 years ago, and Lynn and I have moved continents since then, but it might still be in her document list if we're lucky.

Cheers!

MF.

Quote from: tupac_rd on 24 Jul 2025 08:50:32 PMHey guys, I know this is a very old thread, but I am not able to download the attachment. Is there a trick for that.

Ok. Lynn and I managed to find the attachment. I have just edited Lynn's original post and re-added the attachment, so it is now available to download.

Hope this helps!

MF.

Quote from: KapilKhampariya on 02 Aug 2025 07:57:20 AMSubject: Requesting Cognos 11.1.7 VM Image for Personal Learning

Message:

Hi everyone,

I'm a learner looking to build hands-on skills with IBM Cognos Analytics and Framework Manager. Since IBM no longer provides a direct trial download with Framework Manager included, I'm searching for a pre-configured VirtualBox or VMware image that has:

IBM Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 (or similar)

Framework Manager installed and working

Sample database (like GO Sales or any other)

Ideally running on Windows Server or Linux

⚠️ This would be strictly for personal and educational purposes only — not for commercial use.

If anyone has a VM or can guide me to a trusted download source (even a private link or old community share), I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,
Kapil

Hi,

IBM doesn't offer any free demo install options these days. They do have an on-demand cloud offering with a free 30-day trial, but this will be the latest version (12.0.4), not 11.1.7.

https://www.ibm.com/products/cognos-analytics

That's probably the best you can do.

Cheers!

MF.

What Cognos errors to alert on?

Over the weekend we had a significant outage due to an error we were not expecting/alerting on - CM-SYS-5001.
Is there a list anywhere of all the errors that admins should be alerted about?

I've asked IBM but am not hopeful tbh.

And I know it is a bit open ended but any help would be appreciated.