MicroStrategy Reviews

MicroStrategy is basically a reporting tool, and I take care of the administration side, so I handle complete maintenance and administration of MicroStrategy servers across all environments.

Day-to-day activity actually depends on user account creation to MicroStrategy upgrades and installation. It depends on the tasks that we get. The regular activities would be user creations, deployments or migration of objects.

I wouldn't say there are any unique use cases for MicroStrategy. It's a regular reporting tool, so the usual creation of dashboards and other things. Apart from that, we do performance tuning of a few dashboards for better performance.

In my opinion, the best features MicroStrategy offers include the migration tool, the Object Manager, which is actually good compared to other tools. MicroStrategy Workstation is a pretty good tool. Also, Platform Analytics provided by MicroStrategy is a good thing for the insights of the complete project.

The Object Manager is generally a tool for migration of objects from a lower environment to a higher environment or vice versa. It's a main tool for movement of objects. Whereas Platform Analytics mainly helps to understand the load, the statistics on the project-wise or server-wise performance, and what areas we can actually improve, which thing is consuming more memory. We can analyze the pattern and act accordingly.

MicroStrategy has positively impacted our organization right from the beginning by getting the feedback and bringing up the updates regularly. That's one thing that we actually love from MicroStrategy. Every two to three months, they get a release wherein they give the updated version with a bit of tweaking and other things. Whatever use cases or bugs that we actually report, they take that into consideration and come up with the new release, which is actually quite good from MicroStrategy side. They listen to the customer.

MicroStrategy is actually very useful in building the dashboards and cubes. Even though there are a couple of other tools that are new right now, a bit easier than MicroStrategy, MicroStrategy is a well-known and renowned corporation, making it good for the overall company.

Compared to the new tools, MicroStrategy is still on the old mechanism, the attributes and metric creations that are still a bit vague compared to other tools. They can actually improve on the go, having derived metrics or derived attributes in MicroStrategy. If they have something like that for the attributes as well, it will be good. A pain point is MicroStrategy memory fluctuations that we couldn't actually read that much. If they can improve that performance, that would be great.

MicroStrategy struggles a bit with large data volumes, but they are coming up with new ideas. They have moved to Intelligent Cubes, which can actually handle better data handling. They are coming up with good measures to handle big data.

I have been using MicroStrategy for about 16 years now.

MicroStrategy is actually stable in my experience.

Regarding scalability in my organization, whatever I've worked on, MicroStrategy was able to handle more than 15,000 or even 30,000 users properly. It is good compared to other tools.

Customer support for MicroStrategy is actually good and bad in both ways. Since NTT Data is on MicroStrategy Cloud, we get exclusive customer support from MicroStrategy, which is pretty fast. In my earlier companies, we needed to log tickets and wait a long time for resolution, which took days. But with MicroStrategy Cloud, I think the customer support is pretty good.

I would rate customer support somewhere around seven to eight on a scale of 1 to 10.

For user access and permissions within MicroStrategy, we actually go with security roles. We have different security roles, and we also have different privileged user and functional user groups, wherein we segregate users accordingly and provide access control as per the different roles.

For the compliance requirements with MicroStrategy, we regularly run the License Manager, which we use for compliance purposes. We regularly check for license compliance. For data governance, we have specific tools that can actually check for that.

The integration of MicroStrategy is primarily done for the ETL side, involving several codes and workflows that we have integrated using Python codes. We even have Ansible, these are the main integrations that are done.

I haven't seen anything related to return on investment with MicroStrategy.

I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, I have only a four when it comes to pricing and setup cost because in my earlier companies, everything was done by another team. Here, we actually handle some of the pricing and setup, the license cost, and other things, so we get to know what's behind it.

We actually checked Tableau before choosing MicroStrategy, but we did not find enough features that we were looking for. So we went ahead with MicroStrategy. We also tried another software, but that also didn't help much. So we are continuing with MicroStrategy.

When it comes to upgrades and patching for MicroStrategy, there are not many challenges. The process is actually pretty smooth. With the current company, it follows a regular process because there are different business units that we actually cater to. Based on their approval, we go for the patching. In my previous companies, we would give one specific date for upgrades, but here with NTT Data, we actually get a response from all the customers and agree upon a date, which makes it a lengthy process for the upgrades.

I have not gotten enough exposure to MicroStrategy's AI capabilities. But I hear they are coming up with new AI capabilities, and I'm yet to explore.

We have regular trainings for our customers regarding MicroStrategy. As a platform administration team, we conduct regular team meetings and presentations to educate our customers and help the new users who have actually onboarded.

For regular monitoring in MicroStrategy, we have Splunk monitoring and Sumo Logic, wherein we have regular monitoring of the servers. For troubleshooting, it depends on which areas we get the issues on, whether it is on the web server or the intelligence server, cube performance, etc. The troubleshooting depends on the task.

If someone is looking for stable software that can provide a good reporting experience, I would definitely recommend MicroStrategy. The customer support is good, and they keep coming up with good updates. But if they're looking for more ease of use tools, then I would suggest going for Power BI. Otherwise, MicroStrategy is a pretty good option.

My overall review rating for MicroStrategy is 7 out of 10. Whatever I've mentioned are the good aspects of MicroStrategy, and there are certain pain points.

Harjinder, I recall approximately two years back we had a conversation with you about ForgeRock and Auth0, and I think we had discussed MicroStrategy as well. Currently, we are using it for financial reporting and our MIS reporting. Our core business is insurance-based, so we are working on financial reports related to the insurance domain.

The way to create the dossier is easy, and adding geo-spatial related information on the map is quite straightforward. MicroStrategy's compatibility with Teradata is why my organization has chosen this product. Query banding is automatically being done by MicroStrategy for performance purposes.

We have created one platform analytics project with performance-based reports showing which reports are most frequently executed and which reports are successfully sent out via subscription. We have also generated reports showing the number of active users and inactive users for MicroStrategy.

I am quite satisfied with the reporting part of the product. However, compared to other tools, the modeling part is not as strong. Data modeling is not as easy on MicroStrategy as it is on other platforms. I have worked with the administration tool and the Architect tool for MicroStrategy, but creating a star schema is not as easy compared to other tools.

Creating hierarchies and the modeling part is challenging because data modeling is one of the most important aspects of any BI project. If you can create a star schema or Snowflake schema easily, then report building becomes straightforward. Additionally, MicroStrategy's Workstation tool compared to Developer still lacks some functionality that can be done more easily on the Developer side. Workstation is a great tool, but they have not given it full functionality.

I have been using this solution for thirteen years.

As of now, we are mainly working on web-based MicroStrategy cloud-based solutions. We have moved from on-premises to cloud-based infrastructure. Various teams in my organization are working on MicroStrategy, so my team is not using mobile. I am not aware about the other teams' usage.

The modeling aspect is a bit easier on Power BI, which is why I would choose Power BI. Additionally, most of their tutorials are not as comprehensive as needed. The tutorials cover basic report creation, but when I look for content on how to create a star schema in an easier way, that material is not readily available online.

For deployment, as of now we deploy via packages for the reports space only. For deployment to the cloud, we use Azure Pipelines for the technical code of our SQL procedures. My organization is now moving to another GCP tool, which is Looker, and they are focusing on AI-related capabilities there.

I have not done the integration on MicroStrategy because this project is a support project that I came across, and before that, I had not worked on MicroStrategy. I have worked mainly on Oracle BI tools and know the end-to-end Oracle related solutions. For MicroStrategy, I cannot comment on how easy integration is. In our project, we have not done third-party integration. We are bringing the data into our data warehouse and creating attributes and measures based on that. This is the main approach in my current project, and we are not doing any third-party integration as of now. I give this product an overall rating of eight out of ten.

I use MicroStrategy to build reports for my client, and in IQVIA, we work with pharmaceutical data and I build some reports in MicroStrategy.

I built some cards for my client using MicroStrategy. These cards are available for phones, and the client connects to these cards to view some KPIs for their representative of sales.

In IQVIA, we work with a service that makes the report building process easy for me in MicroStrategy. In this service, we put some cubes, and via a platform, we show our clients the reports. The clients don't have the internal data, so they only have the information that shows on this particular site.

The power of this tool represents the best features MicroStrategy offers in my experience. I find building reports enjoyable because the internal code of MicroStrategy is very easy to understand and build.

The facility to work with MicroStrategy to build reports has positively impacted my organization, and they give us a positive impact for our clients. It's important because with MicroStrategy we can manage all our cubes and show data to our clients.

I don't have any issues with MicroStrategy and would not suggest how it can be improved.

I would not change anything because it's a great tool to build reports.

I would appreciate improvements in MicroStrategy related to integration or sharing features with Power BI. If MicroStrategy could have a connection with that, this would be great.

I have been using MicroStrategy for about two years and a half.

MicroStrategy is stable in my experience.

MicroStrategy's scalability is good, as it has the possibility to read a lot of data and works fine with all the information that we have.

I don't have any experience with the customer support for MicroStrategy or with their support team.

Neutral

I previously used Power BI and Tableau before MicroStrategy.

I don't know why my company decided to switch from Power BI and Tableau to MicroStrategy, as the decision was made by the information or policies of the company.

I don't see any return on investment from using MicroStrategy, and I don't have any relevant metrics or examples, such as time saved or improved efficiency.

My company has many licenses for MicroStrategy because we can build reports in this tool. I don't know what the cost is for these licenses.

I didn't evaluate any other option before choosing MicroStrategy because I don't manage this information. I don't have the capabilities to do that.

The capability and the facility to make reports is valuable advice for others looking into using MicroStrategy. All the visuals are great, are easy to use, and it's a great tool. I rate MicroStrategy an eight out of ten.

I use MicroStrategy for reporting purposes because I have worked across different organizations in different domains, including retail, mortgage, and banking.

The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis in my experience are the security, the metadata management, and the administration, along with the options of different workarounds available to accommodate different types of requirements.

MicroStrategy's data visualization capabilities are great, and I would rate them nine out of 10.

Areas of MicroStrategy that have room for improvement include pricing because it is costly. Organizations that are well-established and have more money can afford MicroStrategy, but startups and mid-level organizations who do not have this much budget have to opt for other cheaper tools.

I have close to 14 years of experience working with MicroStrategy.

The deployment of MicroStrategy used to take hours, but now it takes a few minutes because everybody is using the cloud, so it is already pre-deployed there. We just need to connect with our data and deploy our metadata, and that completes the process.

I would rate the stability of MicroStrategy as nine out of 10.

I rate the scalability of MicroStrategy as eight out of 10.

I would rate the technical support from MicroStrategy as nine out of 10.

Positive

Before MicroStrategy, I used a bit of Power BI and also Tableau.

I find the initial setup of MicroStrategy to be straightforward.

My deployment of MicroStrategy was done in-house, not by using a third party such as an integrator, reseller, or consultant.

I switched from these tools to MicroStrategy because when we evaluated all the capabilities and the feasibility that we got in MicroStrategy, it was way better than the other tools.

There are about 2,500 plus users using MicroStrategy in my organization.

I have experience working with solutions such as MicroStrategy, Power BI, and a bit of Tableau, but not on ThoughtSpot.

My relationship with the vendor is that I am an end user of this solution.

I would rate MicroStrategy overall as nine out of 10.

I am a database developer with experience using both MicroStrategy and Microsoft Power BI. I usually recommend MicroStrategy to my customers. I work at a service company.

The most effective features of MicroStrategy for data analysis are those that cater to user needs. However, I find Power BI to be more useful when comparing some features, but my company does not choose Power BI due to certain code restrictions.

The MicroStrategy interface is not as good as Power BI, especially concerning the user-friendly aspects.

MicroStrategy could learn from Power BI's user-friendly interface. I find the user interface lacking when compared to Power BI.

Additionally, their hyperintelligence could be improved in certain aspects.

I have been familiar with MicroStrategy for two years.

I find MicroStrategy works fine. It is stable.

I find MicroStrategy works fine. It is scalable.

I consider Power BI to be more useful than MicroStrategy for some features.

I would rate MicroStrategy seven out of ten due to the interface and other mentioned aspects.

We use MicroStrategy for reporting on retail analytics, platform analytics, and tracking user usage.

Since it's an enterprise tool, MicroStrategy gives an end-to-end understanding of the system. The solution's platform analytics gives us real-time analysis of how a particular user uses the report and how the systems behave. At times, MicroStrategy comes in very handy to invoice the overall infrastructure. On the user adoption side, our business users find it very easy to use. The solution's dossier functionality comes in very handy.

The solution's licensing could be improved because its cost is heavy on the pockets. MicroStrategy's visualization is a little on the lower side as compared to Power BI and Tableau.

I have been using MicroStrategy for nine years.

MicroStrategy is a very stable solution. Even if there are any bugs, the support team is quite knowledgeable in resolving those usual product bugs.

The client that I'm working with has around 3,000 users for MicroStrategy.

The technical support team resolves all our queries, but they don't provide 24/7 support. I'm working from India, and my customer is in the US. Whenever I raise a ticket, I get the response one day later. The only area of improvement for the technical support team is they should provide 24/7 support.

Positive

MicroStrategy's installation is easier for the developer or the administrator but not for the IT person from the infrastructure team. If anyone knows MicroStrategy, they can install it. For someone who doesn't know about the solution, it's not a ready-to-be-installed tool, just like Power BI or Tableau. For MicroStrategy, you need an understanding of the product it comes with.

Organizations using MicroStrategy are seeing a return on their investment.

The solution’s licensing cost is expensive.

MicroStrategy is deployed on the cloud in our organization.

The client I'm working for already had MicroStrategy as a license. Secondly, MicroStrategy provides enterprise-level support. If I have a big enterprise, my choice of tool will always be something that is very stable.

Many analyses can be easily done on MicroStrategy, which is currently not possible in either Power BI or Tableau. Also, users are not ready to shift from one tool to another.

I would recommend that users analyze their requirements before choosing the solution. I would not suggest MicroStrategy to someone with just a visualization need. I would recommend MicroStrategy to users who want reporting and some analysis done on the fly. MicroStrategy is not just a visualization tool. It's a very powerful data analytic tool as well. Users with both data analysis and visualization needs should go for MicroStrategy.

The support team addresses all the problems that arise from MicroStrategy, including product bugs. The only downside is that it is heavier on the licensing cost part. Recently, MicroStrategy has brought AI features, which are also very costly on the licensing side. MicroStrategy is trying its best to match the current trend that we see in the market.

Overall, I rate MicroStrategy an eight out of ten

I was an architect and developed a BI solution, and I used the transaction feature in MicroStrategy, which lets you write to the database. We used that feature heavily.

Almost all the features are great, but I was particularly impressed by the enterprise features. Security, like how MicroStrategy stores user passwords and the performance, especially the queue. It was very powerful. 

So, the core features of MicroStrategy, enterprise security and performance, were what set it apart, especially compared to other products at the time. Maybe Power BI and Tableau have improved performance now, but back then, MicroStrategy was exceptional. 

And the ability to integrate with PPT is another plus. The platform's ability to write back data directly to the database is also good. 

And, the interactive chart features are all common and valuable.

MicroStrategy, for me, it's the visualization and user-friendliness that needs improvement. 

When compared to Power BI and Tableau, that's their sweet spot. They're super easy to pick up and use. Plus, they've got this cool association feature that updates when you change the timeframe. 

But with MicroStrategy, there's a lot of room for improvement, especially in integrating with developed mobile solutions using MicroStrategy. We struggled to deploy to iOS, and the Android adaptation was a big challenge for us. 

Everything that worked in iOS wouldn't work in Android, and videos and calendars were a whole other mess. So, user-friendliness for non-technical users and mobile performance on Android, particularly in India, where it's the dominant platform, those are my two big areas for improvement.

I have experience with this solution for around six years. It's still there. The company has still been using the products after I left.

The core technical stuff was great. But reaching them and getting a resolution took time. Once escalated to the India sales guy, things moved smoother. 

The challenge was providing them with proper context and materials. They'd ask for this or that; it took time. But their technical expertise was definitely good. 

We need to be patient with the initial communication and have the necessary infrastructure ready. We can't just throw production issues at them directly. We had to set up dedicated environments with management approval. But ultimately, they were supportive and did a good job.

In fact, they released platform updates for us in a couple of instances. Mobile and Android on MicroStrategy were always our biggest pain points, though. Device limitations meant they couldn't do everything.

Positive

We were mainly using Excel, but then I did evaluate Clickview, MicroStrategy, and Oracle's BI tool. This was around 2015-2016, so we weren't using Microsoft's BI solution yet. 

Clickview was actually pretty good back then, and Oracle was a natural choice since we were already an Oracle shop. 

But MicroStrategy won us over with its real-time data replication and data sharing capabilities. So, for the past 15-20 years, I've been working with Oracle solutions, including implementing data security policies and the like. 

And then, for the past few years, I've been managing our MicroStrategy deployment, which basically uses Microsoft's BI platform behind the scenes.

The implementation itself was pretty straightforward. The tricky part was understanding MicroStrategy's licensing model, which was a bit convoluted back then.  

MicroStrategy has simplified it now, though. But overall, the implementation took about a year for our developers and architects to get comfortable, which is fine. There was a bit of a learning curve. 

It's the user-friendliness compared to other BI products that gets me. Power BI and Tableau just feel more intuitive for non-technical users. So, MicroStrategy can be more user-friendly. 

Prices were competitive back then, like three or four years ago. Now, the price is high. But the bigger challenge was the lack of promotion for MicroStrategy in India. 

Products grow through word-of-mouth, like people like us talking about them, training, etc. Marketing in India wasn't great. MicroStrategy was strong in the US and Europe, but in India, they still haven't reached that critical mass. 

Very few people talk about MicroStrategy here. So, the price was high compared to others, but we got a very good discount. So, from that perspective, it's pricey compared to others, but that was three years ago. Things might have changed.

Excluding the mobile Android issues, I'd rate it a nine out of ten. But factoring in the mobile Android experience, it drops to a six out of ten.

Everyone seems to be focusing on AI and predictive analytics these days. Honestly, for India's readiness, the current features are mostly enough. 

The biggest challenge here is data quality and collection from various sources. The ETL part is crucial. If MicroStrategy could integrate with data sources better through partners, that would be a huge improvement. Technically, the product is good. Even Power BI had some performance issues when we tested it. But MicroStrategy's tools have generally been reliable for us.

At our insurance product-based company, we are using MicroStrategy to develop organizational reports, including financial reports and other in-house project reports. 

The product simplifies and accelerates the attribute and maze creation process compared to OBIEE. The dossiers of MicroStrategy are more user-friendly than those of OBIEE. The visualization feature of MicroStrategy is also better than that of its competitors. 

The solution provider should take some initiatives to grow the MicroStrategy community because, presently, it's quite small, and I wasn't able to find a solution to my problem by searching in the community. 

MicroStrategy can offer user-friendly training through platforms such as YouTube. Recently, at our company, the features we were able to utilize in the developer tool were not there in the workstation; such issues can be resolved through training videos or learning content distribution from MicroStrategy. The solution provider is presently promoting the workstation on the cloud instead of the developer tool, so there should be relevant resources for learning about the product. 

MicroStrategy is also working on integrating AI technology into its product. The object migration process from one environment to another using the solution is somewhat complex. It involves package creation, dependency, and transportation. But the migration process is rather simpler in OBIEE, where reports need to be archived in one system and unarchived in another, for example, from Dev to SID.  

I have been using MicroStrategy for a year.

I haven't witnessed any downtime or glitches with the solution, so it's a stable solution. 

I believe the solution is quite scalable. There are around 400 to 500 users of MicroStrategy in our organization.

Previously, our company was working with the on-prem deployment model of MicroStrategy, but now we have migrated to the cloud. 

I have worked with OBIEE as well, but the ideal product selection depends upon the model of business it will be implemented for. For instance, clients who will be building a manufacturing or services page for them OBIEE will be better than MicroStrategy. But for our company and similar insurance product-based organizations, MicroStrategy is more favorable and compatible with ATS like VScape. 

The Hyperintelligence feature of the solution has helped me create visual graph reports by inputting my requirements. 

The creation of projects and the importation of metadata are quite simple in MicroStrategy. I would overall rate the product a seven out of ten. I would recommend MicroStrategy to other users, especially for insurance-based businesses. 

From a data visualization perspective, I use the tool's ability in relation to chats and Esri maps, which is my most valuable feature. There are a lot more functionalities available in the product. Predominantly, I have experience in the area of ODBC when it comes to MicroStrategy.

For everything we do in our company, we consider MicroStrategy to be a workaround solution. For better customization in documents or dashboards, MicroStrategy can improve the features or settings available to make the development easier. I see that dossiers have been introduced in the solution to help the users do self-service in dashboards. I think the tool is not very straightforward for the developers to use the documents, so there is a lot of pending development work in the product. The aforementioned features can be improved in the product.

The online community page of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.

I have been using MicroStrategy for ten years. My company has a partnership with MicroStrategy.

The stability of the product is good.

The product can be scaled out to a certain extent, but it only depends on the requirements of the users.

I have contacted the solution's technical support. My company has a separate team to reach out to the product's support team. My team does not directly contact the tool's technical team. The product's support team has the ability to provide solutions to issues. I was satisfied with the responses provided by the product's support team.

I rate the product's support team a seven out of ten.

Neutral

I have some limited exposure when it comes to Power BI.

For users to be able to use MicroStrategy, they need to have a clear understanding of the application part of the product. When it comes to Power BI, it is easier for users to create dashboards with the tool's self-service capabilities, but it won't be an easy process when it comes to MicroStrategy because they might need to rely on developers to help with the schema part, that user can develop a dashboard with the help of the schema that has been set up. With Power BI, it is easy to pull the data and directly consume it while using the dashboards without the help of any developers. The self-service part is more convenient in Power BI. In MicroStrategy, only if the scheme is built properly can the end users consume the data from the schema. Then, users have to be completely dependent on the developers in MicroStrategy. Power BI is very easy to configure, and you just can do fancy customizations, but in MicroStrategy, one requires skills to do the same, considering that it has a few limitations. The calculations of even complex or huge data can be easily dealt with when it comes to MicroStrategy. If a user has to deal with simple data sources with limited size, then Power BI is good, but MicroStrategy is better at dealing with large amounts of data.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

MicroStrategy's licensing cost is higher than that of other tools in the market. My company uses the enterprise edition of the product. For beginners, there are trial accounts that are provided by the product.

The product has improved areas like data analysis and reporting since I have used the product in domains like education and banking, where I found it to be useful for providing insightful data to our company's customers, especially those who are accessing multiple sources of data. With the tool, I was able to connect to different sources, consolidate, and provide a dashboard where the customers can analyze the data and make insightful business strategies. The tool has been really helpful for me to collate data from multiple sources.

Based on the domains my company works for with the tool, we provided different data visualization formats like charts or heat maps that allow users to understand data more easily than the normal legacy grades or tables. Through visualization tools, my company's customers were able to do analysis in a better and faster way compared to what they could have done using the legacy tools to share data.

The tool possesses abilities in the area of advanced analytics, but I haven't used it. Microstrategy HyperIntelligence cards are available, which can be used in the area of advanced analytics.

The performance issues in the product can be handled. Every tool has some performance issues, and it all depends on how users design it and how they consume the data, along with the maintained infrastructure. If everything is done properly, the performance issues related to the product can be resolved.

My company has access to the dashboard provided by the solution that we can configure and use on mobile phones.

The current project I am dealing with in my company does not require dashboards provided by the solution. Previously, I had used the dashboards provided by the solution in mobile phones. The dashboards are compatible with mobile phones and on websites. It is a bit tricky to have the layout of the dashboards configured on the website and the mobile phones, but it is manageable and possible.

I rate the overall tool a six to six and a half out of ten.

We use it for reporting, it's enterprise-wide reporting. There are tons of different things, some scheduled by MicroStrategy. Those old-fashioned reports, PDFs, Excel, and even portfolio and task stuff. Works for many industries now, different business lines, finance, supply chain, etc.

MicroStrategy has become an obsolete product. It might still be around for another 10, 15, maybe even 20 years, but I wouldn't recommend using it for any specific use cases. Unless you already have a MicroStrategy license, in which case it might be worth sticking with MicroStrategy for cost reasons. However, I wouldn't buy new MicroStrategy licenses.