The marketplace is flooded with solutions that turn volumes of data into attractive charts and graphs. Alone these charts and graphs don't solve your problems.
When you are considering the best products for BI analysis and process, and your dashboard reporting, you need a tool that gathers all of your important data together for you in one place and allows you to easily visualize it in a meaningful way. Ideally, you'll utilize a product that enables everyone on your team to answer their own business questions, simplify and encourage collaboration, all while alerting you to important changes, outlying anomalies, and trends.
To help you determine the best business dashboard for your needs, we're breaking down a comparison of IBM Cognos and SAP Crystal Reports. You will learn about their unique design, reporting, and integration capabilities. Plus, the distinct ways these two products will provide valuable insight into your business intelligence.
IBM Cognos:
The IBM Cognos interface is clean and intuitive. From the welcome screen you can access the various interfaces including; Cognos Connection, Cognos Administrator, Business Insight, and also various studios. Some of the many business intelligence dashboard design capabilities are;
SAP Crystal Reports:
SAP Crystal Reports has a common user interface with other BI dashboards, utilizing the same charting library. The interface that makes dashboard reporting an easier process. Here are several of the design capabilities.
Today, most business reports are pieced together from multiple data sources, including e-mail, databases, social media analytics and spreadsheets. Yet despite the volume of data it is often difficult to make quick and confident decisions that your business demands. When data is either outdated, irrelevant, or presented in a static form, decision makers must work extra hard for meaningful reporting analysis. Here are the best dashboard reporting features of IBM Cognos and SAP Crystal Reports.
IBM Cognos:
SAP Crystal Reports:
IBM Cognos:
Cognos Integration Server extracts all data and security profiles and transfers them into open data warehouses and repositories and organizes them for use in business intelligence (BI) apps, financial performance management (FPM) and directly into IBM Cognos.
SAP Crystal Reports:
System Configuration Wizard is a simplified deployment and migration tool that quickly guides the administrator through a set of easy post-installation configuration sets and migration prompts.
Both IBM Cognos and SAP Crystal Reports offer valuable features that allow any member of your team to gather, analyze, and collaboratively or individually report their data; providing you with greater insight into all aspects of your business intelligence data. An integrated BI dashboard can help you power informed decision making across your entire business. These affordable business intelligence tools can help you deliver timely, interactive reports that are actionable and easy to understand. With a solid, well-integrated business intelligence dashboard, you can utilize data visualization, discovery tools, and scenario testing for greater planning and prediction.
As you begin to make the important decision of choosing the right business dashboard solution there are other a few considerations that are specific to your business.
1. Do you have multiple systems to integrate?
Depending on your existing data systems, data warehousing, and data sources this may be a factor which option you decide upon. SAP Crystal reports offers seamless integration with many Oracle products and all SAP products.
IBM Cognos Integration Server Tool is able to extract data from these systems as well, though the process is a bit more time consuming.
2. Are you seeking personalization of your business dashboard?
Both BI dashboards offer the ability to customize the information or data sets you include in reporting. However, IBM Congos really differentiates by offering simple and fast dashboard creation through the Business Insights tool. The ability to construct a dashboard that fits each user's specific needs is perhaps one of the most powerful capabilities offered. Continuity can be an issue, with sizing and font types inherited from the data source.There are however easy workarounds through the various design studio tools.
3. Is your company geographically dispersed?
While both IBM Cognos and SAP Crystal Reports offer multiple language supports, SAP Crystal Reports does offer slightly more options. In most cases either product will work for your team, but it is recommended that you check in advance to ensure the language support that you need is available.
You wouldn't think of driving a car without a functional and reliable dashboard. It provides you with the information that is integral in getting you where you are going, alerts you to the critical situations that demand your attention, and keeps you safe. In essence, your company needs an integrated data reporting tool and a business intelligence dashboard is the perfect solution for this need.
We know that it can be overwhelming to make the right choice. Don't let analysis paralysis hold you back. 5x Technology is here to help you select, deploy, and maintain the BI dashboard product that best suits your unique business needs. Whether the best solution for your business is either IBM Cognos or SAP Crystal Reports, we will work closely with your team from implementation to education and training. 5x Technology can get you on board faster and keep your system up-to-date and secure than if you were to take on these tasks without help.
Read more about process and analysis, and creating a dashboard platform--download our free white paper, IBM Cognos for Business and IT Users.