So I recently fell upward into an analyst position at work, and while there's a big push towards Power BI, apparently a significant chunk of our data lives on Cognos Analytics. From what I've been able to gather, someone set up some reports pre-covid and people have just been using those reports ever since. The guy who set them up left the company a while ago, and nobody knows how to do anything with this EXCEPT run those reports. I'd like to get a handle on it.

Unfortunately, I am a very small cog in a very large machine so I don't have access to stuff like setting up my own data modules (I am not trained in data science or whatever, I'm a techy guy with google), and the data I DO have feels like it's all over the place and not labeled particularly well.

Do you folks have any links that might be helpful to me as a newbie, trying to wrap my head around how this is supposed to work? Tips and/or tricks for massaging the data into legible reports? I'll take anything at this point.

Neither Power BI nor Cognos Analytics contain data.  Based on your level of data and analytics experience, and your level of permissions, I'm thinking either working directly with your Cognos Analytics administrator or hiring a contractor would be your best option.

Quote from: icallow on 12 Nov 2025 08:59:38 AMSo I recently fell upward into an analyst position at work, and while there's a big push towards Power BI, apparently a significant chunk of our data lives on Cognos Analytics. From what I've been able to gather, someone set up some reports pre-covid and people have just been using those reports ever since. The guy who set them up left the company a while ago, and nobody knows how to do anything with this EXCEPT run those reports. I'd like to get a handle on it.

Unfortunately, I am a very small cog in a very large machine so I don't have access to stuff like setting up my own data modules (I am not trained in data science or whatever, I'm a techy guy with google), and the data I DO have feels like it's all over the place and not labeled particularly well.

Do you folks have any links that might be helpful to me as a newbie, trying to wrap my head around how this is supposed to work? Tips and/or tricks for massaging the data into legible reports? I'll take anything at this point.

If I was in your position, I would focus first on getting more familiar with the reporting side of Cognos Analytics. I fully agree that the data (or at least the view of the data presented to the author) needs to be properly structured and intuitive, but getting to grips with the modelling side is a much bigger ask, and you need to walk before you can run.

There are official courses available for reporting from a number of different providers - both instructor-led and self-paced. I would suggest you ask your company if they would book you on a course. Once you have a basic grasp of the reporting side it will help you a lot - both in being able to author new reports and also in understanding what deficiencies (if any) your current data model(s) have.

Here is a link to the Report Authoring Fundamentals course to get you started:

https://www.ibm.com/training/course/ibm-cognos-analytics-author-reports-fundamentals-v112-B6358G

Cheers!

MF.