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Microsoft Purview Data Governance pros and cons

Vendor: Microsoft
3.8 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Microsoft Purview Data Governance excels in providing robust data protection across multi-cloud and multi-platform environments, making it essential for industries like banking.
The integration of classification rules and scan rule sets is particularly beneficial for identifying and managing sensitive data effectively.
Its automatic data discovery capabilities, especially in handling data classifications and regulatory frameworks, stand out as key strengths.
Data governance policies and sensitivity labeling in Microsoft Purview enable secure data handling and ensure compliance across the organization.
Communication compliance features offer valuable insights into potential risks and help manage sensitive conversations safely.

CONS

Microsoft Purview Data Governance has limitations in data lineage functionality, which requires significant manual work for effective operation.
The API requires improvement, particularly when connecting to non-Microsoft API sources, which restricts broader data source integration.
Issues with data type detection, which is limited in capability, require enhancement to support better data classification.
The event-based retention management in Microsoft Purview is reported as poor, needing better implementation for efficient data handling.
Technical support and documentation are cited as needing improvement for better user guidance and issue resolution.
 

Microsoft Purview Data Governance Pros review quotes

KB
Solution Specialist at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Sep 8, 2021
Has a good interface and is reasonably priced.
Nitin Kakkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager Data Supply Chain at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Feb 13, 2024
It is critical that Purview delivers data protection across multi-cloud and multi-platform environments. That is the number one reason that people are adopting hybrid and best-of-the-breed approaches. Especially in banking, it is critical because people want to protect, govern, and secure their data. This is one of the first conversations that happens with security and the architecture group on the client side.
reviewer1946223 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of IT at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Aug 24, 2022
One of the best features is the classification rules, especially the scan rule sets. They are really useful, especially when we need to understand the current data the company has to ensure that all the problematic data can be put under someone's responsibility.
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Purview Data Governance. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
DavidSmith15 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Governance Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sep 4, 2022
The cataloging tool is definitely the most valuable... It tells you about all the data you have in your tables, which helps people understand our data. We now know what data we have.
reviewer1967262 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data & Analytics Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Sep 21, 2022
Instead of having to manually write down which tables and columns exist and then describe them, you can do that process in one go, by simply connecting to a source. That's a huge time-saver and a great benefit of Purview.
reviewer1984410 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Solution Architect at a government with 10,001+ employees
Oct 9, 2022
It's certainly easy to work with all Microsoft data sources like SQL Server, Synapse, and data lakes, but it also has great functionality working with Oracle. And of particular interest to us is the ability to pull data from Excel, CVS files, and other types of flat files.
Albert Hoitingh - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Consultant Microsoft 365 Compliance at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Dec 16, 2022
The data classification part of the solution is excellent, especially as it gives us an insight into our sensitive data within Microsoft 365.
reviewer2134215 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Apr 10, 2023
The availability of pre-designed policies tailored to specific geolocations and customer requirements is a valuable feature.
ND
Senior Consultant at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
May 3, 2023
Microsoft Purview is extremely stable.
RP
Data Engineer at a consultancy
May 10, 2023
I like Purview's data discovery features. It automatically scans and identifies all the fields. In the last project, the customer required us to have some of the codes we specified in this, and we had to structure the codes in a specific way. We can define the structure.
 

Microsoft Purview Data Governance Cons review quotes

KB
Solution Specialist at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Sep 8, 2021
There are some limitations with regard to the lineage of data from different parts of the system.
Nitin Kakkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager Data Supply Chain at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Feb 13, 2024
The API needs some improvement when connecting to non-Microsoft API sources. This is a limiting factor.
reviewer1946223 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of IT at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Aug 24, 2022
Another area for improvement is in managing the business glossary terms. If they could provide the same type of method that we use to configure the scan rule sets, that would be helpful. Currently, there is no option like this, so we have to do it manually. Automatic detection would be great.
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Purview Data Governance. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
DavidSmith15 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Governance Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Sep 4, 2022
Purview's data connector platform for non-Microsoft data sources is good, but there is some functionality that hasn't been developed yet. There are some servers that it can't connect to yet, because they're still in a trial process.
reviewer1967262 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data & Analytics Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Sep 21, 2022
Although you can explore the data, that creates a great interest in data lineage or the data flow. How does it go from a source to a platform to a Power BI report, for example? It is possible, to some extent, to see that with Purview, but the lineage feature requires some manual work on the development side or more work from Microsoft to improve on it.
reviewer1984410 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Solution Architect at a government with 10,001+ employees
Oct 9, 2022
One area for improvement is the detection of data types. This is really important. It has some of that functionality, but I consider it very limited. Maybe they can add some custom programming or machine learning could be particularly useful for the detection of the nature of the data.
Albert Hoitingh - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Consultant Microsoft 365 Compliance at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Dec 16, 2022
Blueprints and landing zones like we have in Azure would be great to see in Purview. The solution could offer a baseline or blueprint of recommended settings for compliance regulations such as GDPR and ISO, which could be applied with a simple switch in the options.
reviewer2134215 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Apr 10, 2023
The Microsoft Purview data connector platform, which supports ingestion from non-Microsoft data sources, can be somewhat complex.
ND
Senior Consultant at a tech consulting company with 1-10 employees
May 3, 2023
The current event-based retention management is very poor.
RP
Data Engineer at a consultancy
May 10, 2023
We've had a few issues with the scanner. It runs perfectly one day, and on another day, it will run the whole night. It's probably related to the rules. If I set some compliance rules and apply the rules to any column, I can't delete it. I have to disable it and reactivate it.