Introducing IBM Cognos Disclosure Management

Source:http://www.ironsidegroup.com/

January 1, 2013 by Rich Sepe

 

The worlds of financial and operational analytics have always diverged, creating a disconnected analytics environment that segregates decision-making. That’s why The Ironside Group is thrilled with IBM’s recent release of IBM Cognos Disclosure Management (CDM), a solution that brings together the power of finance and operational analytics, with the ability to easily annotate your results when you need more than just numbers alone. IBM Cognos Disclosure Management is a reporting and process automation solution designed to merge financial and operational analytics with narrative analysis in a controlled, auditable environment. You may have experienced the need to produce “board books”, or narrative reports, within Cognos, but had no way to accomplish the job other than custom, one-off reports. This has the potential to be a powerful solution for the Office of Finance.

Easily Combine and Narrate Your Most Accurate BI & PM Data

Cognos Disclosure Management marries financial, operational, and statistical data with narrative analysis in a fluid and dynamic environment. Finance professionals can tie-in Cognos business intelligence with their financial data and value-add analysis, and make it available to others in a controlled, secure collaboration to strengthen analysis and decision-making.
This includes the capability to link report data directly to enterprise data sources. Users can create dynamic reports that update automatically when the numbers in underlying data sources change—ensuring a single, consistent version of the truth throughout the office of finance.

Intelligent Process Design and Automation

Disclosure Management also provides intelligent process design and automation, transforming previously manual processes and enhancing controls well beyond the corporate financial reporting process and across other corporate finance processes. Disclosure Management includes workflow and task management capabilities allowing finance professionals to gain insight into critical performance management and reporting processes through dashboards and alerts. It also optimizes controls and auditability with standard review and validation procedures and ensures they are performed at each level of the organization—from department to entity to corporate headquarters.

Familiar Authoring Environment

Lastly, Cognos Disclosure Management automates the creation of management and executive PowerPoint presentations. Users can take advantage of their expertise with the calculation capabilities of Microsoft Excel, and their knowledge of formatting in Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word, while utilizing the additional functionality and capabilities of an enterprise database driven solution

Key Features at a Glance

• Easily combine business intelligence and performance management information in a single secure environment.
• Finally create those time consuming, manually annotated reports in a centralized, governed and automated environment with 100% accurate supporting data.
• Simple user interface based in Microsoft Office
• Direct Microsoft PowerPoint integration
• Easy to use wizard for adding queries from your live and accurate BI and PM data sources
• Simple management of reports, workflows and user based security
• Supports Popular Data Sources
  • OLAP (TM1/Controller (FAP), Essbase, MSAS)
  • HFM
  • External Excel File
  • Relational (Oracle, DB2, SQL)
  • Cognos Go Office, Cognos Café (limited – no dynamic refresh)
  • TM1 Perspective Excel Add-in (limited – no dynamic refresh)
  • Controller Excel add-in (limited – no dynamic refresh)
• Supports Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010