In our previous blog post, we briefly covered some of the advantages of adding map intelligence to your business intelligence (BI) program and why correlating people, places, assets, and events with your existing corporate data using Map Intelligence can reveal deeper insights into operational performance and help you learn more about your customers.
In this post, we’ll discuss how easy it is to connect IBM Cognos Analytics with Esri ArcGIS, two powerful data analysis platforms that many organizations already use and benefit from, but haven’t been able to integrate.
Until recently, connecting these platforms hasn’t been easy. While Esri offered a connector to IBM Cognos Analytics, the company decided to move in a different direction and dropped support for the integration of ArcGIS with popular BI products, leaving many organizations in the lurch over how to continue combining geospatial information with corporate performance data.
To turn data into actionable insight, organizations need the ability to directly and immediately combine the right maps, third-party data and business data without costly data modelling and transformation. And since many organizations have maps and geographic data sets specific to their business, the best solution won’t require organizations to move, republish, or build special versions of maps to support analytics across the organization.
Unfortunately, integration of business analytics tools like Cognos with geospatial solutions like Esri isn’t easy, and most organizations simply don’t have the expertise to build and maintain a complex integration like this. While custom integrations can work, the costs, risks, and time commitment are too high.
The Gap Between BI and GIS
In addition, custom integrations also require deep expertise in geographic information systems (GIS) applications and Business Analytics, a combination that is difficult and expensive to resource. Custom projects like this are also subjected to delays and breakages as a result of vendor software upgrades. So, it’s little wonder that organizations face significant challenges when it comes to bridging the BI and GIS worlds.
Connecting IBM Cognos with Esri ArcGIS for Operational Insight
Thankfully, there’s no need to spend significant time or money to build a custom integration to connect IBM Cognos Analytics with Esri ArcGIS. Attain Insight® Map Intelligence bridges the gap between BI and map data to extend the power of both IBM Cognos Analytics and Esri ArcGIS to deliver deep insights into business operations combining the best of both worlds
Attain Insight Map Intelligence is a plug and play extension to IBM Cognos Analytics that enables the direct integration, overlay, and navigation of map data and other third-party data sources without any programming and without having to move or relocate maps from Esri ArcGIS whether online or on premise.
There’s no journey or roadmap. Esri visualization capabilities are seamlessly integrated directly into IBM Cognos and are realized by simply turning on Attain Insight Map Intelligence. In addition, there’s no need to replicate or move existing maps or geospatial data. Attain Insight Map Intelligence can access your custom map data where it’s always been stored. Your map specialists can continue their work as they have before and the intelligence they add into your maps will always be immediately available in IBM Cognos Analytics.
With Map Intelligence, instant results can be delivered to your end users by any of your existing report authors without extra training or technical expertise. You can bypass the IT backlog and get right to work.
Making the connection between IBM Cognos Analytics and Esri ArcGIS with Attain Insight Map Intelligence simply requires a pay-as-you-go software as-a-service subscription. As well, if your organization is using IBM Cognos Analytics, your time to market is nearly instant.
To learn more about how easy it is to integrate Map Intelligence with IBM Cognos Analytics, contact us today for a free 30-minute consultation to map out your path to excellence.
