Business Intelligence, Reporting and AdHoc Query Tools

Solution	Description
Cognos Reports	Centrally developed reports that can be executed on-demand or scheduled. Reports are currently available for the current financial (KFS), security role (KSAMS), Office of Research, Office of Institutional Research, and student success (Compass) data.
Cognos Dashboards	Centrally developed interactive tool that provides visualizations such as a graph, chart, plot, table, and maps of key performance indicators, data points, metrics and other insights from aggregated data sets.
Cognos TM1	Enterprise planning software that allows for planning, budgeting, and forecasting. Solutions are currently available for Planning and Budget.
Cognos Report Studio	Allows technical users the ability to author reports using existing Cognos content.
Cognos Workspace Advanced	Provides business users a simplified interface for authoring reports using existing Cognos content.
BLISS Adhoc Query Tool	An OIT-developed tool providing business users with a query by example user interface for extracting data. Queries are currently available for historical and current financial data, employee, payroll, purchasing and accounts payable data.

Use Case	Solution	Difficulty
Infrequent and/or non-technical users that need quick and simple access to predefined reports	Cognos Reports	Simple
Users that need frequent or scheduled access to standardized reports or reports with complex business logic, or with complex formatting and graphics	Cognos Reports	Simple
Executives and upper management that need high-level aggregate, summarized at a glance data with graphical representation of the numbers. Usually includes key performance indicators or trend analysis.	Cognos Dashboards	Simple
Technically advanced business users that require adhoc and customized reporting using existing Cognos pacakges	Workspace Advanced	Moderate
Business users that require adhoc or scheduled access to data, using a flexible yet easy to use interface that would allow downloads to Excel or other application	BLISS AdHoc Query	Moderate
Technically advanced business users, with Cognos training, that need to build customized reports with complex business logic and/or formatting	Cognos Report Studio	Difficult

Delivery Option	Description	Use Case
On Demand	User runs the report manually when needed.	Daily operational reporting needs.
Scheduled, via email	User schedules the report to run at a certain day/time.	Large reports with longer run times (greater than 2 minutes). Regularly scheduled reports.
Bursting to Filenet	Regularly scheduled report runs, where the report is stored on the Filenet server.	High quantity, reports needed for data retention purposes or auditing.