Upgrade IBM Cognos now!  Do you know why you should upgrade today?  Did you know that Cognos BI has been rebranded as Cognos Analytics and that TM1 has been rebranded as Planning Analytics?  There are many reasons you should consider upgrading today!  Below are my top reasons to complete your IBM Cognos upgrades as soon as possible!

1. End of Support - Cognos BI 10.2.x will end support on April 30, 2018.  What does this mean to you?  There will be no more support from IBM in terms of patches, bug fixes or fix packs unless you purchase extended support for an additional cost.  Link to end of support page.  Link to what is included if you choose to purchase additional extended support.  If you are on Cognos Bi 10.2 or earlier, support ended April 30, 2016.  For a quote on purchasing extended support, please email sales@lodestarsolutions.com
2. User Experience - IBM has provided a completely new user interface that is easy to use, organized and frankly, so much better than Cognos 10.  Not much else to say here, you just have to see it and try it!
3. Dashboards, Dashboards, Dashboards - Anyone who tried to build dashboards in Cognos 10 knows that the process was not an easy one.  Actually, it probably made you rethink using dashboards.  Enter Cognos Analytics!  Creating a dashboard is a simple, no nonsense process that is quick and easy.  You can take a uploaded file, package or cube and create a dashboard in less than an hour.  No longer do you have to create the widgets in report studio and bring them into workspace.  This simple process is no drag and drop, put in production and use!
4. Upload Files and Data Modules - Uploading files is very easy to do in Cognos Analytics.  The system will actually identify the columns and assign them as time, facts or measures.  You can use these files to merge with package data or cube data and the update process is very easy.  Take a bunch of offline files and upload them and merge then together using the data module function in Cognos Analytics.  There are many possibilities when it comes to utilizing the new data area in Cognos Analytics.  Truly provides on the potential for on the fly self service data modeling.
5. Continues Updates - The IBM Cognos Analytics team has done a great job of continually updating the software.  Currently we are on version 11.0.10, meaning they have released 10 upgrades in a couple of years.  Each update provides not only bug fixes and code enhancements but also new features and items that the user community has identified as important enhancements.  IBM has a dedicated site for enhancements requests that you can check out here.

​https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSD29G_2.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_prism_gs.2.0.0.doc/c_prism_what_you_can_do.html​​​The above list are just my top reasons to upgrade IBM Cognos Analytics.  Candidly it was hard to narrow the list to just five as there are so many more reasons to upgrade.  I would love to talk to you about your upgrade and the costs associated.  In most cases, it is less than you think to upgrade.  You can reach me at services@lodestarsolutions.com.

1. End of Support - TM1 10.2.2 will end support on September 30, 2019.  TM1 10.2.0 will end support on September 30, 2018 and all other versions of TM1 end support a couple of years ago or longer.  Again this means that their will not be any big fixes, patches or fix packs unless you purchase extended support.  Link to end of support page.  For a quote on purchasing extended support, please email sales@lodestarsolutions.com
2. Workspace - Workspace is a web-based interface that provides an interface to TM1 data, with ways to plan, create, and analyze your content.  There are MANY things you can do in workspace that are too numerous to list here.  Check out this page to see everything you can do in workspace.
3. PAx - Planning Analytics for Excel - Provides Planning Analytics access in excel and also integrates with workspace.   You can slice and dice, create quick reports, create dynamic reports and create custom highly formatted reports all in excel.  Then publish the reports to workspace and get all the benefits that workspace provides.
4. New "Hierarchies" - The new "hierarchies" allow you to create virtual dimensions which can allow you to limit the number of dimensions in the cube.  This allows you to perform more complex and quicker analytics on your data.
5. Speed - Planning Analytics integrates better with Cognos Analytics and utilizes better memory management, which allows better performance.  TM1 has always been quick with its in memory technology.  Now the best iseven better! 

Like with Cognos Analytics, these are just my top reasons to upgrade IBM Cognos Planning Analytics from TM1.  There are many many more reasons and again, the cost is not huge when compared to everything you get when you upgrade.  You can reach me at services@lodestarsolutions.com.