It has a very good feature called Excel plug-in. You just have to install the plug-in, and then it directly connects to the MDS instance where you can maintain and manage your data and publish it right through Excel. You don't need to go to the front end to make any changes.

It has easy integration with SQL Server, and you can use SSIS to do the ETLs. It is a part of the Microsoft stack. It works with most of the Microsoft stuff.

I'm not sure if it is a feature, however it's very easy to use. Out of the box, the product has a lot of built-in functionality, stored procedures, views, and security.  

The Excel plug-in is a great feature. You can use it to create MDS entities, add, change, and delete data in entities, and interact with all the business rules and attribute definitions. 

MDS also has a web service that can be used to create methods to manipulate the data stored in MDS. The web service is the same service that Microsoft uses for developing the GUI that comes with MDS.

The most valuable features are the quick creation of data models, strong access control, data-sharing capabilities, and comprehensive workflows. It's a cost-effective solution, especially if you have SQL Server Enterprise Edition, as it's included with it.

The best thing about it is that it comes with the Microsoft package.

The ease of use is valuable.

• Ease of use
• Excel interface
• Simplicity
• Soft delete support
• Sophistication of business rules
• Price (FREE for sql server enterprise license)
• Hierarchy management 
• Security integration with AD
• Very fine grained security
• Easy to build (and extendable) business rules
• Automatic Notification
• Versioning
• Integrated boolean business rules
• Change detection
• Integrated workflow
• Staging support
• Publication support
• Ability to propagate from one repository to another
• Ability to share reference data across models
• Integrates as a web part
• Flexibility
• Includes both batch staging process and Excel data loading
• Unused area of hierarchies to easily identify members not assigned

The solution is easy to install. 

It gives you the flexibility to have in-depth experience. It allows you to collect data and save it as a golden record. You have the flexibility for data stewardship.

They also have an Excel API where you can do everything from Excel. You can make changes with the connectivity on the Excel API.

It's very easy to use.

The backup and restore functionality are the solution's most valuable aspects.

One of the main features I have found useful is the integration with Azure active directory.

The most valuable feature of the solution is Excel because it enables even non-technical people to directly interact with the BI system which is important because most of our people are not from the IT sector. The second important feature is that while we are using Informatica and other SAP tools which are less customizable, MDS increases customization for us and that is very useful. MDS, SQL and SSIS make the solution much more powerful. The main reason we use this solution is because of its customization. 

The most valuable feature of Microsoft MDS is its management.

The dynamic data masking, the row-level security, and the data quality business rules are the most valuable features of the solution.

What I like about Microsoft, is that it has a huge database with many users.

I like the ease of deployment. It is very easy to deploy and provision a machine.

I like the analytics and that I can run them. Until now, this was always something that was done on the business side. For me, this solution makes it easier to do analytics.

With Oracle, they have to use an IBM business intelligence tool called Cognizer. But with Microsoft, the BI tool is better. So we are using Microsoft BI as it is quite good.

The most valuable feature is the administration console.

You can import data from Excel.

Its data quality, as well as integration with other Microsoft tools.

• Web Service integration
• Customer Workflow Extensions