Administrators need to be technical. For a new Cognos BI environment, you should look at selecting administrators that are very technical and can manage a large-scale enterprise application. In addition, administrators need to be able to understand the needs of the business. Typically, in smaller Cognos BI environments, you will see the administrator wearing multiple hats, namely designing models and reports as well as gathering requirements. In these types of scenarios, the same administrator may be setting security one minute, and the next minute could be gathering reporting requirements from a business user. Every environment should have at least one Cognos administrator that has experience being a Cognos administrator. If not, you should seek support from IBM or an IBM Business Partner to train an administrator from your internal staff.

Ultimately, anyone with a strong technical background and the ability to understand business needs could be...