For internal users in the city's 26 agencies, the software should ease the process of accessing data. Those users now have to navigate through various pieces of an aggregate cube of data from all the agencies to access cost and budgeting information for individual departments, Framel said.

"[The search tool] can alleviate upward of five minutes for good users or 30 minutes for a user who doesn't know a cube that well," he said.

The new search tool, called the Cognos Go Search Service, offers a browser-based search bar designed to help users quickly find BI information housed in reports, scorecards, dashboards and analysis, said Paul Hulford, senior product marketing manager at Cognos.

The new Cognos 8 version also includes report packs for SAP AG's mySAP R/3 software and Oracle Corp.'s Siebel CRM application. Those add-ons will allow users to combine historical information stored in a data warehouse with current data from the applications into a single report. The packs include predefined content for more than 60 commonly used reports for mySAP and Siebel CRM data.

For users of SAP's NetWeaver integration tool, Cognos 8.1.2 provides access to data in SAP's data warehouse, runs on the SAP Web application server and can present information through the SAP NetWeaver portal, according to Cognos.