Book a 1 Week Cognos Assessment Stabilize, document, and reduce Cognos TCO. Migrate safely to QuickSight/Power BI/Tableau. Available via 8(a) sole source or GSA MAS.
Cognos O&M + Cost Optimization
New Reports / Dashboard development
Data Management Services
Operations, Maintenance & Support
Federal Past Performance
We Turn Around Failed Cognos Projects
Are your dashboards and reports getting obsolete?
Stale dashboards can quickly become obsolete and go unused. At Y Point Analytics, we keep dashboards updated to meet the evolving needs of any growing business. We continually enhance dashboards and reports to ensure they remain relevant and meet the changing analytic requirements of your organization. Additionally, we proactively monitor source data and enhance data pipelines, which helps insulate Cognos dashboards and reports from source data structure changes, ensuring their longevity and usefulness.
Typical results: 28% of unused reports retired and 20% improvement in report runtime.
Is there a lack of interest in business teams to use Cognos?
Our team works closely with users to gain an in-depth understanding of their specific needs. We then create interactive and visually appealing Cognos dashboards that engage users and provide valuable insights. We employ “Cognos storytelling” tailored to each user, weaving data and insights into compelling narratives. Furthermore, our efficient data pipelines & data integration jobs ensure that the data is always up-to-date and accurate, ensuring user engagement. This has helped increase user adoption rates by 30–40% across client environments.
Are you getting the expected ROI from your Cognos investment?
We improve ROI by reducing licensing costs, increasing adoption, and streamlining ETL processes. Our approach reduces manual integration work, improves data quality, drives collaboration through governance, and implements Cognos best practices. Outcomes often include 35% license seat reduction and lower operational overheads.
Worried about Cognos licensing costs?
As an independent partner, we’re not incentivized by Cognos to sell you more licenses. Our only goal is to deliver the most cost-effective solution for your business. That often means helping you reduce seats, migrate reports, or modernize analytics while cutting license costs by up to 40%.
Mini-Case:
We recently inherited an under-documented AWS Cognos environment for a federal client. Our team created detailed runbooks, stabilized patching, and migrated priority reports — all with zero downtime. This turnaround helped restore confidence and ensured continuity for mission-critical reporting.
Cognos Best Practices
- Data Modeling: Build governed models in Framework Manager or Data Modules. Keep them lean by avoiding unnecessary query items.
- Relationships: Define relationships clearly in the model and validate joins to avoid duplicate or missing data.
- Prompts & Filters: Use prompts and filters to reduce query size and improve performance. Push logic down to the database when possible.
- Report Design: Reuse templates and stylesheets for consistency. Minimize nested queries, conditional formatting, and heavy calculations in reports.
- Performance: Use aggregate tables, materialized views, or OLAP cubes for large data sets. Enable caching where appropriate.
- Testing Model Changes: When updating models, validate all dependent reports to ensure accuracy.
- Version Control: Keep version history of models and reports to manage changes effectively.
- Deployment: Use parameters for environment-specific values (like database connections) to ease migration between dev, test, and prod.
- Security: Apply row-level security carefully and validate access controls.
- User Experience: Keep dashboards simple, interactive, and responsive. Provide drill-throughs instead of overloading a single report.
Frequently Asked Questions on Cognos Architecture
Yes, If the source system is not significantly snow flaked and has high quality data.
No, Model is maintained in SSAS
Best practice is to run upgrades in lower environments first, validate with parallel runs, and apply patches with rollback plans in place. CVE monitoring should be active to ensure timely security updates.
Yes — Cognos supports SAML and LDAP integrations for Okta and Active Directory, enabling secure enterprise-wide SSO patterns.
Convert frequently used reports into dashboards, analytic apps, or migrate workloads to cost-effective platforms (e.g., QuickSight or Power BI). Monitor usage to retire unused reports before adjusting license counts
Yes. IBM actively invests in Cognos Analytics with regular releases, security updates, and Artificial Intelligence enhancements. Cognos is part of IBM’s long-term analytics strategy and continues to be fully supported.
Yes, Recommended for high volume data sets. Columnar index can be created on SQL server for rapid performance.
(Not save data in memory, and act as the data model for Cognos)
Yes.
Cognos 11 is on a phased support path, while Cognos 12 is IBM’s long-term roadmap version.
Use security filters at the model level for governance. Avoid overly complex row filters that can slow performance; test with representative workloads.
Yes. Cognos integrates with GIS data using spatial extensions and map visualizations. Agencies can combine location data with reports to analyze trends, resources, and service coverage on interactive maps.
Yes. IBM has introduced Generative Artificial Intelligence in Cognos to simplify report authoring, natural language queries, and insight discovery. This helps federal teams quickly create analyses without deep technical expertise.
Can Cognos directly connect to SQL server source systems.
Yes, If the source system is not significantly snow flaked and has high quality data.
Can Cognos directly query data from SQL server data warehouse?
Yes, Recommended for high volume data sets. Columnar index can be created on SQL server for rapid performance.
Can Cognos data model be changed when Cognos sources data from SSAS?
No, Model is maintained in SSAS
If Cognos read data from SSAS, can SSAS be set up in directly query mode?
(Not save data in memory, and act as the data model for Cognos)
Yes.
How do we keep Cognos securely patched during migration?
Best practice is to run upgrades in lower environments first, validate with parallel runs, and apply patches with rollback plans in place. CVE monitoring should be active to ensure timely security updates.
What are the support timelines for Cognos 11 vs Cognos 12?
Cognos 11 is on a phased support path, while Cognos 12 is IBM’s long-term roadmap version.
Can Cognos integrate with Okta or AD for Single Sign-On (SSO)?
Yes — Cognos supports SAML and LDAP integrations for Okta and Active Directory, enabling secure enterprise-wide SSO patterns.
What are best practices for implementing Row-Level Security (RLS) in Cognos?
Use security filters at the model level for governance. Avoid overly complex row filters that can slow performance; test with representative workloads.
How can we reduce Cognos license counts safely?
Convert frequently used reports into dashboards, analytic apps, or migrate workloads to cost-effective platforms (e.g., QuickSight or Power BI). Monitor usage to retire unused reports before adjusting license counts
Does Cognos support GIS systems?
Yes. Cognos integrates with GIS data using spatial extensions and map visualizations. Agencies can combine location data with reports to analyze trends, resources, and service coverage on interactive maps.
Should I retire Cognos and move to Power BI or Amazon QuickSight?
Not necessarily. Cognos remains a stable, enterprise-grade platform with strong governance and security. Many agencies run hybrid strategies — keeping Cognos for compliance/reporting while using Power BI or QuickSight for self-service dashboards.
Does Cognos have Generative Artificial Intelligence features?
Yes. IBM has introduced Generative Artificial Intelligence in Cognos to simplify report authoring, natural language queries, and insight discovery. This helps federal teams quickly create analyses without deep technical expertise.
Is IBM continuing to maintain Cognos?
Yes. IBM actively invests in Cognos Analytics with regular releases, security updates, and Artificial Intelligence enhancements. Cognos is part of IBM’s long-term analytics strategy and continues to be fully supported.
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Federal Contact:
For federal inquiries, please reach out directly at federal@ypoint.net.
Procurement Options
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