Unless you’re untouched by our marketing team (and really, why would you want that?) then you’ve heard of this “In the Cognos Box” announcement. And the more it’s promoted, the more questions come our way. We love the enthusiasm coming from our customers and friends, and want to compile one solid place to answer the most popular questions!
Why Upgrade to Cognos 11.1.1?
Cognos 11.1.1 is a blend of new features on the robust platform you already trust. Cognos 11.1.1 adds an AI conversational assistant that will answer questions about your data in natural language. Other new capabilities include AI-recommended visualizations, user-centric data prep and modeling, and enhanced collaboration among users.
What is Motio “In the Cognos Box?”
It’s a joint campaign between IBM and Motio. Since Motio solutions shorten the duration of the upgrade, it causes the end users to get to the latest version of Cognos faster. So IBM is providing two Motio solutions (more on that later) for free for 30 days to use to help you with the upgrade.
What does improve the upgrade process mean?
Historically, moving all of your Cognos assets to the latest version of Cognos proved to be a burden. There are many reasons for that, but mostly because companies have built a large number of reports and dashboards. Did you know that the average number of Cognos reports in a production environment is over 11,000?
When you move to the latest version, you want to ensure that all of these reports and Cognos assets will behave in the new version as well as they did in the last. To make sure everything is correct, you have to test all of your assets, which is time-consuming. And it wouldn’t be fair to ask your business users to take up this tough task, would it?
Due to the scope of this project, it’s difficult to properly plan for an upgrade. We found that project managers often enter a situation where their employees try to add in other huge changes to their Cognos upgrade budget. For example, since you are taking the time to upgrade all your assets, some project managers see this as the time to switch security providers, improve current reports, or even move to the cloud. We call this scope creep. Motio technology helps you to get insight into the Cognos environment quickly and determine the impact… CI help you understand what is happening throughout the upgrade.
Okay okay, so how does Motio actually help?
You can use our new license MotioCI for Upgrades that offers versioning, deployment, and testing for upgrades only. MotioPI Professional allows you to manage the upgrade in your dedicated upgrade environment. These solutions help as they allow you to:
- Define the scope of the upgrade prior to beginning, so you can determine which content is invalid, duplicate, and unused. This content should not be moved to Cognos 11.1.1!
- Freely delete Cognos content that won’t make the upgrade, but with the safety of knowing that version control can recover anything you may need.
- Save time through automated testing, which ensures your content will behave as expected in the upgraded environment.
To read more about MotioCI and MotioPI Professional specifically, check out their respective product pages on our website!
How long does MotioPI Professional and MotioCI take to set up?
You can download MotioPI Professional to your desktop or laptop in only a few minutes. MotioCI typically takes a few hours to install and connect to the Cognos sandbox environment.
Will I get training on MotioCI and MotioPI Pro with my free subscription?
We will give you a link to videos that will teach about installing, getting started, and how to use both products. If you would like more guidance about the approach and how to work with the tools, training and services can be purchased from Motio or from one of our premium partners.
How many users can my company have on MotioCI?
Unlimited! MotioCI is not user based.
What if I have additional questions on Motio products?
Not a problem! Simply email help@motio.com. Or if you have a relationship with one of our partners, they would be more than happy to help. Tell them Marketing sent you 
Can I use Motio products to upgrade Cognos Analytics on the cloud?
Yes, you can, but this is not part of the IBM – Motio In the Cognos Box offer. You would need to purchase licenses for this purpose.
What if my upgrade takes longer than 30 days or if I would like to leverage this for every quarterly release?
Motio offers a very attractive subscription model for using the MotioCI Upgrade capabilities for large projects or for your next quarterly upgrade. We would be happy to provide you a quote. Contact us for that quote by submitting this webform.
What are the server requirements for MotioCI?Motio has a system requirements document that will be provided during the download and is part of the install documentation. You can get access to our documentation after you register on www.trymotio.com.
Since IBM releases new versions every quarter, can I use MotioCI for my next upgrade?
Yes! And you can re-use all the test cases with all prompt values that you have set up. Motio and IBM has designed a special license for this purpose, so keeping up with quarterly releases becomes a do-able task instead of a huge project.
How does it work?
After you download Cognos 11.1.1, head over to www.trymotio.com. From there, you can download MotioCI and MotioPI Pro for immediate use!
Then, get started! Contact help@motio.com if you have issues in setting up.
I already have MotioCI & PI Pro- what’s in it for me?
Thank you! And, good question! MotioCI and PI Pro users can still get benefits from In the Box. Simply send an email to help@motio.com for tailored advice on how Motio can continue to provide benefits to your organization
If you’ve stayed with me this long, congratulations! I hope this Q&A has helped you to better understand our exciting campaign with IBM, and this partnership makes you a winner. What other questions do you have for us about Motio solutions or upgrading Cognos? Leave them in the comments!
