What is Cognos over Maximo all about
The basic facts are quite simple. IBM is upgrading Maximo to improve the control of company assets and the asset maintenance processes. With Cognos, it provides the vehicle to make these processes more visible across the business, exploiting the integration of asset management into the wider business performance management processes of the business, allowing the business to make informed decisions.
Triangles’ experience of using Cognos over Maximo allow Maximo users to plan and prepare for their Cognos migration. Triangle has a number of Blueprints enabling the business to be self-sufficient in report terms within a few days. Of course Triangle can take you further by customising and extending the Blueprints to deliver further value to the business.
Previously, Maximo took a traditional approach to reporting, using BIRT as a reporting tool. It has been integrated with the Maximo application for some time, giving a relatively simple developer driven reporting tool for Maximo users. With the acquisition by IBM of both Maximo and Cognos, IBM has now positioned Cognos to provide much more than the same functionality.
Cognos business intelligence tools can be used to bring together data not only from Maximo but also from a myriad of other business systems providing a level of reporting not available with BIRT.
Why is it important?
IBM is encouraging its customers to transform their approach to asset maintenance in order to do more with less. This means changing the ways from just recording assets, maintenance of events, works orders and resources to pro-active management of the asset portfolio.
This helps maximise a business’s assets by reducing the stock of spares, minimising downtime through planned maintenance. This ensures that asset management becomes an active profit contributor to the business instead of a necessary overhead.
Cognos combined with Maximo ensures a business’s assets are working for the business to maximum effect.
Why Cognos with Maximo?
We are past the days when it was enough to know and list our assets and record our works order driven maintenance tasks. At that level, BIRT coped well and was used primarily as a programmer’s tool to produce operational reports. This documented what had happened or provided a report to drive a process but did little to give the business insight needed to improve decisions and business efficiencies.
In order to minimise asset downtime, maintenance and labour through visibility and planning, we need an analytic tool, particularly one where users can identify patterns of activity and then dive down to the detailed levels needed to act.
Maximo is accepted by analysts as a world leading Asset Management System and IBM Cognos as a world leading Business Analytics tool. Combined they are undoubtedly world class, making Asset Management more visible and more manageable. Imagine a world where asset purchases are truly based upon comparative cost of ownership over predicted useful asset life, including no works orders left open and preventive rather than reactive maintenance. With Cognos and Maximo, that’s now achievable.
Since IBM own both Maximo and Cognos, we can use these world class tools together, both tactically and strategically.
Should we consider other reporting tools?
Most major line of business systems over the years have used a third party reporting tool, so they have all presented an interface that allows a number of widely used reporting tools access to the data. Maximo is no different. It chose BIRT for historical reasons. What’s new is that IBM can now develop Maximo and Cognos side by side to deliver new levels of reporting capabilities and integration.
Looking back, we have seen businesses being happy to have a reporting tool that needed a developer to write reports. However, they are beginning to realise that it is far more efficient to provide a user with a self-service reporting tool where they can easily interact with pre-authored reports or create their own reports, providing swift answers to business questions without resorting to requesting development time.
In 2007, IBM included BIRT in the Tivoli Common Reporting stack which IBM uses beneath all Tivioli family products. The tactical need was to enable operational reporting, print works orders, listing them by department, highlighting outstanding ones, etc, all delivered by developers
What happened next?
In 2010, IBM strategically withdrew support for Actuate with Maximo in favour of Cognos its flagship-reporting tool. Many feel this has signalled IBM’s intent to side-line BIRT as its preferred reporting tool within Maximo and stop the potential migration of users to Actuate as an enterprise reporting tool of choice. Therefore, from Maximo Version 7, IBM has included a broadly equivalent subset of the Cognos BI tools in the Tivoli Common Reporting stack, signalling the strategic way forward, leaving BIRT in place as an option.
Eclipse, which owns Actuate and BIRT was a good option at the time. In fact, IBM invested in Eclipse at one point and indeed Cognos was the reporting tool for Maximo at one time as well. Time has now moved on, calling for much wider reaching, more easily configured, user driven reporting tool which Cognos is able to provide.
How far has IBM got with Cognos and Maximo?
BIRT remains as a legacy-reporting tool, inbuilt into TCR, underneath Maximo. Upgrading BIRT outside of the runtime isn’t easily supported, so may not be wise in the longer run.
Cognos is included in two ways. For many of the Maximo licences IBM provides a Cognos reporting licence bundled free of charge as part of TCR. In the two Version 7 releases so far, there’s been a good level of integration, which is different from BIRT and we think will become better as further versions appear. It won’t be the same as BIRT, which is designed only to operate within the Maximo runtime.
Cognos can also be used as a full enterprise reporting tool bringing together data from many data sources. There will be additional licence cost implications for this approach but it does open up the way to integrate Maximo data with data from around the enterprise to provide one version of the truth.
In summary, you have choices. You can either use Cognos as you do BIRT as an operational reporting tool over the Maximo data set, or extend the reporting deployment to include non Maximo data which is a new and valuable option.
So, is it really that we’ve no option? It’s Cognos or Cognos?
No. The open interface remains as is. Some users will stay with BIRT, some will upgrade and embrace Cognos. Some will upgrade and use neither BIRT nor Cognos. Triangle believes Maximo with Cognos is the best value for money option.
It’s fair to say that Cognos integration with Maximo makes it a compelling reason to choose Cognos as their preferred reporting tool.
And, do you know – Cognos is the best option from every point of view. Yes, there is an open interface but doesn’t everyone know and plan for their own stable of products best? We think so.
Isn’t it going to just cost money?
Cognos limited licences are included within TCR, as is BIRT. Like for like, there’s no difference. When you buy Maximo, the supplier usually offers to include the top 5 BIRT reports from the out of the box list.
With Triangles' Blueprints you get all the reports ready to use straight out of the "box". In just a few days the Blueprints could be working for your business providing real insight in the data held in the Maximo tables.
Where Cognos will also save you money is that it is easier to work with technically and is much more user friendly. In addition, IBM’s aim is for you to make Maximo and Cognos deliver more to your bottom line. That’s the whole reason behind the Maximo and Cognos upgrade.
Yes, it’s true that additional money would be required to cover licence costs, configuration, support, etc., but only if you choose to expand the use of Cognos beyond the Maximo data set. In other words, just like any other Enterprise BI project.
As you would expect there are many ways to provide for this expansion and each project would need to be evaluated and its benefits defined. Also, the new announcement of Maximo Express Use Licences may well help to spread the use of Maximo and Cognos more affordably than hitherto.
Has IBM provided pre-packaged reports?
There are currently no pre-packaged Cognos reports over the Maximo database provided by IBM. However Triangles Blueprints address this and provide an enhanced version of the BIRT reports in our offering. Report can be tailored to your implementation should you need it.
Maximo is typically configured by industry and is then adapted for your company. The data tables, structures and joins will therefore be bespoke in many cases. Having said that, probably in excess of 90% of the tables will remain unchanged, making the customisation of our Bluepirnts relatively straight forward.