In-Depth

Cognos Ships Revamped Scorecarding Product

Metrics Manager version 2 improves flexibility, provides more relevant information to users

• By Stephen Swoyer
• 08/27/2003

Almost lost in the deluge of industry BI consolidations last month was a significant product enhancement from Cognos Inc.: Version 2 of its enterprise scorecarding tool, Metrics Manager.

Cognos officials say Metrics Manager Version 2 boasts a variety of functionality, flexibility and scalability enhancements that have been driven largely by customer requests and feedback.

The Ottawa-based BI vendor claims the new version of Metrics Manager enhances its corporate performance management (CPM) strategy as a result of enhanced integration with its Cognos Analytic Applications, Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, and Cognos Enterprise BI Series 7 Version 2.

"Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 expands our leadership in corporate performance management as scorecarding becomes a strategic imperative to performance-driven enterprises around the globe,” said Robin McNeil, VP of corporate performance management with Cognos, in a prepared statement.

New in Metrics Manager Version 2 are personalized views of key metrics for individual users, along with support for real-time monitoring, alerting, and event detection capabilities through e-mail and mobile devices.

Cognos also touts Metrics Manager Version 2’s revamped insight and analytic features, including new assessment capabilities that allow users to view a metric and understand the underlying performance measures that impact it. The new version of Metrics Manager can also expose users to supporting data and reports that provide additional visibility into performance issues or patterns.

On the scalability front, Cognos says Metrics Manager Version 2 can support tens of thousands of scorecards and hundreds of thousands of individual metrics. The new product features more than 650 pre-defined metrics, and boasts integration with Cognos Enterprise Planning Series, which gives it the capability to automatically generate scorecards with seed metrics and target values.

Finally, the product boasts support for many J2EE Web application servers, including market leaders WebLogic from BEA Systems Inc. and WebSphere from IBM Corp. Cognos says that users can tap the power of applications servers to create a centralized pool of metrics, which provides a consistent 360-degree view of the entire business.

Mark Smith, a senior VP of research with consultancy Ventana Research, says enterprise scorecarding has gained acceptance as a tool for performance management in many enterprise environments. With the release of Metrics Manager Version 2, Smith says, Cognos should continue to be a leader in this emerging space. "The scorecarding capabilities in Cognos Metrics Manager Version 2 are more flexible through enhanced personalization and the ability to provide even more relevant information to users,” said Smith, in a statement. “These enhancements will save corporations significant time and money in taking action and driving results."

Metrics Manager Version 2 is available now.