Mobile workers need business intelligence (BI) data to be available on their smart phones, notebook computers and tablets wherever they are so that they can make information-driven decisions—even when they’re not connected to the web or their company’s network. IBM® Cognos® solutions for the mobile workforce enable business users to gain the same trusted insight whether they are in the office or on the road.

1. IBM Software
Business Analytics
Cognos Business Intelligence
Enabling a mobile
workforce with IBM
Cognos solutions
Executive summary
Highlights
•
Enable users to interact with, analyze
and share IBM Cognos Business
Intelligence content wherever they are
•
Provide users with a rich and visual
experience whether offline or online for
uninterrupted productivity
•
Keep up with the demands of users on
varied devices with a single
administrative environment and the
ability to reuse BI content
Mobile workers need business intelligence (BI) data to be available on
their smart phones, notebook computers and tablets wherever they are
so that they can make information-driven decisions—even when they’re
not connected to the web or their company’s network. IBM® Cognos®
solutions for the mobile workforce enable business users to gain the
same trusted insight whether they are in the office or on the road.
Traditionally, IT relied on Microsoft Excel, PDF, HTML or custom
applications to deliver critical BI content to these devices. But these
modes are limited, are harder to update with new data and provide a
frustrating user experience—or none at all when out of network range.
Custom applications become almost prohibitively expensive as
application developers try to keep up with the rapid-fire pace of mobile
device releases.
In 2007, IBM did away with these limitations with the introduction of
IBM Cognos Mobile, which has recently been enhanced to provide a
rich user experience on tablet computers and on even more smart
phones. This is in response to studies that show that Apple iPad is the
preferred platform for mobile business intelligence, surpassing
BlackBerry smart phones early in 2011.1 IBM has also developed IBM
Cognos Active Report, which makes it possible to interact with BI
content on your Apple iPad even when you are not connected to the
Internet or your network.
This brief describes how Cognos software addresses the challenges of
the mobile workforce by providing BI to the growing community of
mobile users.

2. IBM Software
Business Analytics
Cognos Business Intelligence
The shifting mobile landscape
Users want to be assured of the security of critical, often
sensitive, BI on their devices and to know that if that device is
lost or stolen, the information will not fall in the wrong hands.
They also want to be sure that they are all able to see the same
report in the same format—no matter what device is being
used or whether they are connected to or disconnected from a
network or the Internet. IT is being pressured to deliver a
secure, seamless transition between formats and offline
connectivity.
The mobile landscape has changed. There are more mobile
people in the world and in your company than ever before.
Whether it is an executive traveling all over the world, a sales
representative who is only in the office occasionally or a
middle manager who needs to access information in a meeting
down the hall, all need secure and reliable information at their
fingertips.
With this changing landscape has come a fundamental shift in
organizations today. Business users are bringing their own
personal devices, including tablet computers, into the office
for business purposes. So, naturally they want to use business
applications on them, and they also want them to run as
quickly and as smoothly as their personal and consumer
applications. Even though many no longer travel with
notebook computers, they still want access to the same trusted
information when they are away from the office.
IT itself wants to be able to support the process of authoring a
report once and distributing it to multiple devices rather than
having multiple report authors creating it for each platform.
They are also feeling the pressure from executives for these
reports to be highly visual and interactive.
Cognos solutions for the mobile workforce can help address
these challenges.
Several analyst reports support this shift. According to
Gartner, 33 percent of all BI is being assimilated on mobile
devices.2 Also, a Howard Dresner study asked respondents to
indicate the importance of mobile BI to their organizations
and found that it remains largely unchanged from six months
ago.3 That this level of interest has been sustained as
organizations have deployed mobile BI to users is both
significant and encouraging.
Introducing Cognos solutions for the
mobile workforce
The increased need and desire to access and interact with BI
on mobile devices profoundly affects IT. IT is used to
operating as the technology expert, doing the research and
deploying the technology that best fits their environment.
However, the mobile agenda is being driven by the user
community. This has created a number of challenges for IT.
Many in IT are wondering how to support these devices while
addressing other issues related to mobile BI: security, report
format, connection and authoring for different platforms.
The ability to use existing BI content and a single authoring
and administrative environment helps IT keep up with the
demands of users on varied devices. The flexible and proven
platform ensures mobile decision-making is simple, reliable
and secure. These features and more provide security,
uninterrupted productivity and a rich and highly interactive
experience to users on any device.
With Cognos Mobile and Cognos Active Report software, the
mobile workforce can interact with information like never
before and receive insight relevant to them wherever they are.
Users work with trusted BI content in a rich and visual
experience whether offline or online for uninterrupted
productivity.
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3. IBM Software
Business Analytics
Cognos Business Intelligence
Single authoring and administrative environments
Security
With Cognos solutions for a mobile workforce, IT is provided
with a single authoring environment for creating reports and
dashboards that can be used and reused in a number of ways,
including on mobile devices. IT can capitalize on authoring
skill sets and eliminate duplicate efforts. BI report authors
write a report in one environment and know that every user
can access it, regardless of language, locale or format (web,
search, mobile, desktop productivity suite and more). No
separate mobile authoring environment is needed. This gives
users access to all BI content, instead of static renditions
authored specifically for mobile devices.
IBM has gone to significant lengths to ensure the security of
Cognos Mobile operating on smart phones and tablet devices.
Cognos Mobile security is derived from a combination of
sources: IBM, your device operating system and your IT
department.
Mobile workforce example: Using Cognos Mobile
on tablets
Sales representatives for a pharmaceutical company are
losing time waiting for information or for someone to
provide research results. After the vice president of sales
decides that the account executives will only use tablet
computers to access their productivity tools, including
access to BI, the company deploys Cognos Mobile.
The single Cognos administration environment enables IT to
use the same Cognos Business Intelligence platform
capabilities for mobile devices that you use for the desktop.
This means that administrators do not have extra
administrative overhead for mobile deployments. IT uses
Cognos Business Intelligence to maintain centralized control,
while meeting specific user needs with administration
capabilities such as scheduling and bursting for mobile devices
or for Cognos Active Report, which is available for the Apple
iPad. IT can ensure mobile workers receive the latest and
most relevant BI content because they can send out reports to
specified sets of users on a scheduled basis.
The account executives see a marked improvement in their
productivity. Cognos Mobile for the Apple iPad provides the
most current territory information at their fingertips and
quick and easy access to analytics.
In addition, no matter how users access Cognos Mobile—
from a native application or the web—your underlying
security base will be the Cognos platform. The Cognos
platform provides integration with enterprise authentication
and a central place to control access and authorization for all
Cognos Business Intelligence objects, capabilities and data.
Broad device support and mobile deployment options ensure
that mobile workers can access BI on Apple iPad and iPhones,
BlackBerry smart phones and PlayBook, Android tablets and
smart phones. That way, your organization can support
mobile strategies that are specific to the needs of your users.
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4. IBM Software
Business Analytics
Cognos Business Intelligence
This integration simplifies the login process and restricts
access to data according to business requirements.
Users can have BI content automatically sent to their device,
or can choose to connect securely to the Cognos server to
access the information they need to make smarter decisions.
For analysis on the go, there are prompts for drilling up, down
and through, so they can “take the pulse of” business while on
the road and make timely and accurate decisions based on the
most up-to-date information. In addition, for BlackBerry
smart phone users, “location-aware” intelligence enables them
to receive reports that are dynamically filtered with locationspecific information, so that their analysis and decisionmaking is relevant to where they are.
For native applications, a device lease key prevents access to
disconnected Cognos content when a timeout period elapses.
A good analogy of the lease key functionality is the concept of
a hotel key. The key is enabled for the duration (lease) of your
stay. Then, at the checkout time on the last day of your stay,
your key is disabled (your lease has expired) and you are
unable to access the room. The room is still there, but you
will not be able to gain access until you make appropriate
arrangements.
Rich, visual and interactive experience—online or off
Users all want the same experience in the work world that
they have in the consumer world in terms of interactivity and
consistency. Cognos solutions for a mobile workforce provide
them with the same experience they get from consumer
applications while taking advantage of device-specific gestures
and collaborative exchange. Cognos Mobile takes advantage
of the all the native functionality of their tablets and smart
phones. In addition, they can customize their BI experience by
adding individual reports or dashboards to a Favorites list or
Welcome screen so they can get their most important
information fast.
In the case of Cognos Mobile, upon expiration of the lease
key, content is not accessible until the user authenticates and a
new key is granted. This ensures that disconnected content is
inaccessible without wiping the entire device.4
Uninterrupted productivity
Cognos solutions for a mobile workforce make it possible to
ensure that worker productivity is not interrupted, no matter
where they are or how they are accessing their BI content.
Instead, they have access to the same broad business analytics
content that spans the spectrum of time and all supported data
sources whether they are in the office, on a laptop, using a
tablet or working on a smart phone.
If users have Apple iPads, they can use touch screens and the
familiar Apple interface to navigate through BI content. With
the collaborative exchange feature of Cognos Mobile for the
Apple iPad, users can share their perspectives with others by
highlighting an area for discussion and then sending an email
with comments, insights and actions to the appropriate
people. By making it easy to communicate information
regardless of where they are, Cognos Mobile for the Apple
iPad helps users take timely action—no more trips back to the
office or waiting for a call to get the reports they need to
make important decisions.
Mobile workforce example: Keeping a pulse on the
business
The CFO of a financial services company needs daily
updates on unsecured lending, mortgages, liabilities,
campaigns and other activities related to her industry.
Accessing static information from PDF, Microsoft Excel and
PowerPoint files is not helping her keep up with her business in real time. Implementing Cognos Mobile for the
Apple iPad, she is able to receive fully interactive dashboards related to the health of the business and contact
people for explanations, to collaborate on next steps or
enact improvements.
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5. IBM Software
Business Analytics
Cognos Business Intelligence
About IBM Business Analytics
If users have a BlackBerry smart phone or PlayBook, they can
easily navigate through the same content using trackballs or
touch screens. Cognos Mobile also extends BI content to
tablets that use the Google Android operating system so their
users have the same kind of rich, interactive experience that
users of other mobile operating systems enjoy. Much of this is
accomplished by the users themselves, so IT does not have to
be involved with the setup and deployment of customized
features.
IBM Business Analytics software delivers actionable insights
decision-makers need to achieve better business performance.
IBM offers a comprehensive, unified portfolio of business
intelligence, predictive and advanced analytics, financial
performance and strategy management, governance, risk and
compliance and analytic applications.
With IBM software, companies can spot trends, patterns and
anomalies, compare “what if” scenarios, predict potential
threats and opportunities, identify and manage key business
risks and plan, budget and forecast resources. With these deep
analytic capabilities, our customers around the world can
better understand, anticipate and shape business outcomes.
Conclusion
Cognos solutions for the mobile workforce were designed for
users who need to interact with, analyze and share Cognos
Business Intelligence content wherever they are. Whether
they are on the road or at the office, they get the same great
insight. With these solutions, IT can take advantage of
authoring skill sets and eliminate duplicate efforts to support
the mobile workforce, ensuring that the right information gets
to the right people on the go and that corporate information
on the device is secure.
For more information
For further information or to reach a representative please
visit ibm.com/analytics.
Request a call
To request a call or to ask a question, go to ibm.com/
business-analytics/contactus. An IBM representative will
respond to your inquiry within two business days.
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