Cognos Framework Manager is a necessary step in separating the end user from the data. Most end users are not going to be technically savvy enough to understand the underlying database structures that contain the information that they need. For that reason, it is important to have a layer between the database and the end user. That layer is designed by Cognos Framework Manager.
End users want information presented in a meaningful way. However, the data that is stored in most databases is not presented in a meaningful way. The column names rarely represent the business name of the data. In a database, the business information "Product" may be represented as PROD_NAME. However, end users want to see "Product". Another common problem is that information that may all be presented in one shared screen in an application is often stored in multiple, non-joined tables on the underlying system. The end users want to see this information...