Last week, I attended the C10 BI partner training in Toronto and despite the chilly, snowy weather the product was hot!  Cognos 10 is like dessert to C8.  The base functionality for IBM Cognos 10 licensing is very similar to C8, so upgrades will be pretty painless; however Cognos added functionality that is SWEET.   My favorite was the Business Insight functionality.  Enhanced consumers and higher will be able to create their own workspace where they can analyze and interact with the information displayed through a dashboard unique to them.  For the semi-power user with a BI Advanced Business Author license or higher they will be able to use Business Insight Advance which starts to combine the functionality of C8 Query Studio, C8 Analysis Studio and Report Studio Express in to one.  The good news is that unlike Report Studio Express, Business Insight Advance can report off relational data.

I believe as clients start to understand the functionality and benefits of Business Insight, end users will leverage it to be their “Start of the Day” dashboard.  The items that they are most concerned about each morning will be displayed whether it is sales metrics, inventory data, or cash forecasting.  It will be displayed how they want to see it in drillable tables, charts, graphs… The user can select a prompt value to filter all the panes simultaneously to reflect your selection.

So what you need to know about C10 licensing is that if you are on C8 and current on support, you can migrate your licenses to C10 without cost; however if your end users are Consumers or Recipients they will not get rights to the new functionality like Business Insights.  They will be business as usual with C8 functionality.   If you want the consumers to get the sweet dessert offered by C10, the licenses will need to be upgraded to the Enhanced Consumer license and there is a cost associated with this upgrade.   Similarly, if you have a Business Author license which gives you Query Studio but want more robust functionality offered in the Business Insight Advanced, you would need to upgrade to the BI Advanced Business Author at a cost.

The IBM Cognos 10 licensing at first glance can be confusing. But Lodestar Solutions is here to help answer your questions.  The graph below should help clarify the functionality associated with the various licenses.

For more information, call Lodestar Solutions 813-254-2040