MicroStrategy Reviews

We use it for statistics for our customers.

The solution makes it easier for self-service.

The pricing could be lower because it is costly. They could also provide some features that Tableau offers. Microsoft has development features regarding schema objects and some integrations.

Tableau is more user-friendly, and MicroStrategy could improve specific visualizations, short card metrics, graphs and functionalities. In addition, it would be good to have year-to-year comparisons using transformations.

We have been using this solution since 2007. We are using the latest version, and we always update the versions. We use on-premises and are currently shifting to Google Cloud Platform.

It is a very stable solution. However, the tool could have easier optimization. We are used to creating cubes, but if the query is too large, our administrators in the databases abort the query. That is why we need to be able to optimize and have a good response time.

It is a scalable solution.

The technical support is helpful. They are testing some issues regarding the metadata when one of the columns gets duplicated. They take the schema for us and divide it. It takes a while, but they help us because it is hard for us to do it ourselves.

Our clients use Tableau, QuickView and PowerBI, but we use MicroStrategy at our company.

Our infrastructure department takes care of the implementation. There are some drawbacks to the shift. MicroStrategy is also scaling.

I rate this solution a nine out of ten. It is a great tool and has the best offerings for doing data analysis. In addition, it offers some features that are better than Tableau and Data Studio.

It is basically used for higher reporting purposes, such as process digitization, retail, bookings, inquiries, etc. We only used it for a PoC.

We were using the latest version available at that time.

The interactive features that appear in the report were good. The external rendering option they give with multi servers was also good.

It was interactive. Building the dashboards was pretty straightforward. It didn't take me much time to learn.

It was also secure. We were using it on-prem and, integration-wise, it had options for various data sources. We could connect with different databases, which was an advantage of this solution.

The collaboration feature, which was separately licensed, was also good. The hyperIntelligence feature was also good. They give you custom cards where if you hover over any web content, those terms would appear in your report, and then it'll give you a quick summary of the KPIs around that word. I really liked this feature.

Data preparation-wise, it was not so straightforward with respect to getting different sources. Preparing or transforming the data inside and then bringing it onto the dashboard was a bit difficult, and the experience could have been better.

I used it for around three to four months. I was involved in a PoC, and then I had to step aside. I'm currently not involved with MicroStrategy.

It is most probably stable because I did not face any problems with it. I had very limited experience with it, and I did not face any issues.

It is scalable. It is on-prem, but they have cloud features as well. 

We had about 300 to 400 users.

Their tech support was pretty good. They responded pretty quickly to all issues. 

I was not involved in any of the admin processes. We have a team of 10 to 15 people for deployment and maintenance.

It is a licensed product, so we need to pay for it, but I'm not aware of the exact pricing and comparisons.

You need to explore and see if it fits your use case. You need to explore its data modeling features and then decide whether to go ahead or not. You should also compare it with other solutions, such as Power BI, and take a call based on your requirement. It integrates with different data sources, but I could not explore the data modeling features.

I could learn it quickly. I had read the comments that the learning curve is steep, but it was not so bad.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

We are a partner with MicroStrategy. We have over 300 casino installs of our casino operating system. Right now, we have them in about 10% of the properties which are with us. We pretty much do a lot of custom reporting for them and/or train them how to do customer reporting and visualizations.

It is performing well.

In my particular area, it has actually enhanced it greatly. It has enabled us to get data to the customers, then have them turn around and create these reports in minutes rather than hours. 

We have, to varying degrees, rolled out Self-Service and some of it is more IT driven on the properties. Other times it is more custom reporting done by us. They have it as a feature there. They can use it to the best of their abilities, but a lot of times they will bring us in to do all the custom stuff.

In 2018, we will be using the capabilities of Dossiers more. We are not yet looking at investing in mobile analytics, because we are trying to do something in-house.

The drag and drop and point and click features of everything that will instantaneously render data and/or visualizations right off the bat.

We like having the single platform of it. However, we also like the ability to go out there and hit disparate data sources because a lot of the properties that we deal with have a lot of different type of disparate data sources coming in rather than just our one casino management software.

They have so much stuff in there that I don't know what else they can put in there, unless they can get somebody to be able to talk in there and tell it to build a report. 

From the standpoint of a partner and what I do as a job, there is nothing that I can see. Maybe from the customer's standpoint, because they are getting into something new.

Stability is great. We have not had any issues.

Scalability is fantastic. It can go from a small operation up to a gigantic operation. 

We have used technical support a couple of times. It was more or less at a level that had to do with web Java errors and stuff like that. Other than that, we pretty much use the knowledge base. We feel that Microstrategy's community is a good forum to use.

I have been involved in some parts of the setup, and it is pretty much straightforward. It is not horribly hard to set up in comparison to other things that I have seen.

Do it now.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: They have a knowledge base and offer training and/or have events where you can network with people from the company who do stuff. With MicroStrategy, actually meeting the people that you're dealing with face-to-face.

The primary thing that we are planning on using it for in the near future is analyzing healthcare trends and providing more visibility into what is going on within our healthcare spend. 

Getting more data to people more quickly. Providing more flexibility for how they use the data, so speed up the time and flexibility in how they are getting to use the data.

We primarily use it to support more internal departments. Those are our customers. We have different areas which we support from a healthcare data standpoint. The plan is to enable them to use the data, so we would use some configuration and setup, but then the customers would go in and look at the reports that we have set up or be able to do ad hoc stuff based on those data sets which we have built. 

I really like the visualizations. I like how you can put large data sets in there, then the user can quickly go through the data and drill down at various levels to understand things. 

It is definitely customizable. We have been able to put in key metrics and performance indicators, thus it is customizable. 

There are features which we are not using as far as some mapping and geography things which we could be using more broadly. That is in the current capabilities. 

I also went to a class on some statistic stuff, R, and all that integration that I think we would like to use. As far as additional things that are not currently a part of the capabilities, I am not sure, because I do not know all the capabilities yet. 

Throughout the set up of some large data sets that we use, we have had to learn more about how to use MicroStrategy in the right way. At the beginning, there were things that we set up a certain way, and it might not have been the best way from a speed perspective. We have had to go back and adjust things accordingly, but so far the changes that we have made have gotten us to a place where we are comfortable with the speed and usability. 

My team has a little bit, I have not personally. I know they have used support for some administrative stuff, but I do know our team is very hands-on. They will go research stuff on their own, too. They use a combination of the two, but I have not heard of any specific issues per se. I would say one thing that I probably get from a lot of customers is that based on our industry, they do not necessarily understand our industry as much as we do. Therefore, when we come to them with a problem, they might know more of a generalized solution, but not one targeted to our industry. 

We are currently using a combination of Excel, SQL, and ad hoc queries.

I am new to this position. I have been there a year. I got a glimpse of some of the things we were using it for initially and realized that the tool is a lot more powerful than what we were using it for. I do not believe we were leveraging it to its full capabilities. Being able to get the right data to the right people in a timely manner is really important, and I saw a lot of opportunity to use that tool to solve some problems that I currently had. I do not know where it is going to end, but we are trying to leverage it as much as possible and build out the capabilities. 

Some stuff is easier than others. Throughout this big project that we are working on now, there have been challenges and hurdles. We have worked through those one at a time. It is user-friendly in some aspects, but in others, you definitely have to do some research to figure out the right way to fine-tune things. 

When I took the position we were already using MicroStrategy. We actually looked at Tableau 2 as an alternative, but we decided to stick with Micro Strategy because we thought it was a better solution for our business. 

Make sure you have the right people and the right training going into the development aspect of it. Really understand the tool, its capabilities, and features before you start doing large scale development. 

I like the capabilities MicroStrategy offers. I do not know if it would be the only solution, but it has a lot of capabilities that we are still learning to understand better. We are probably looking at investing in mobile analytics at some point in the future.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Attention to the customer's needs and having support here when we need it. 

• Ad-hoc capability is critical to our customers
• They depend on the ability to take a standard set of data and organize it in a manner that is meaningful to their particular field of interest.
• Our product delivers POS transaction analysis in grids, dashboards, and documents.
• We group analytics under multiple areas, including Operations, Loss Prevention, Merchandising and Inventory, Loyalty and Fuel. 
• Our customers’ users can modify a ‘canned report’ to deliver the information their organization finds key. 
• Distribution is key as well. Typically there is one person within the organization or department ‘writing’ the reports. The reports are distributed to a larger group of consumers. Automated, scheduled distribution of information has become key to running their day-to-day operations.

Our customers and their users have used our product to:

• Find theft
• Reduce product waste
• Increase profits
• Make better staffing plans
• Improve store and staff performance measures.

The examples are numerous, so I’ve attached a couple of articles and included a link to our website. http://www.pinncorp.com/soluti...

There are a number of different applications bundled together and delivered under an umbrella product. It needs to be easier to determine which application controls which features and functionality.

I need to point out is that our company is a MicroStrategy OEM partner. We use the MicroStrategy products to build a BI solution for our own retail clients. 

With our EPM solution, we offer different user tiers to our customers, allowing them to acquire minimal functionality for Store Managers.

Each tier includes a particular set of MSTR applications. The Store Manager tier was created so that a single report could be run, but the output for each Store Manager would be limited to that store’s data.

This worked great on grid reports, but when our customer wanted to run dashboards and post them on a server instead of emailing them, it didn’t work. 

After casting about, we learned that we had to add a Report Services license for each Store Manager in order to support the posting of docs and dashboards to a server folder and distribute emails with links. That was a financial hit and it was not what we understood our clients would be able to do with the licensing they were getting.

This particular example actually got resolved when MSTR repackaged their solutions. This included many services in the server umbrella.

We have used this product for eleven years.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

I am not aware of any previous solutions.

There is an added complexity in an OEM setup because we ultimately have to be able to deliver a ‘reusable’ solution to our customers. The user setup seems flexible, but it can be complex. 

My experience may be OEM-centric. It was, for the most part, addressed when MicroStrategy repackaged their applications under fewer solution umbrellas.

I don’t typically advise others regarding the pricing. We tend to serve lower user count customers so they are not getting any volume discount consideration.

That was a long time ago. I believe they were using Cognos and Crystal Reports.

• Take advantage of their training which they often offer to prospects. It will allow you to use the solution to your advantage much more quickly and efficiently.
• Get a clear picture of the type of development skill that is required to get a quick start.

In addition to its dashboard, reporting, and scorecard development tools, MicroStrategy has more than 10 tools in its product suite which help to integrate with other technologies and products.

• Enterprise Manager tracks the usage of the MicroStrategy environment. This helps management to know how well the stakeholders, such as sales and business users, are using the tool for decision making or for daily sales tracking. They can know if there is an ROI for this tool.
• Visual Insight helps top executives with little or no technical background to find the insights and visualize the data in no time. Multiple formats are supported: Excel, CSV, text, and more.
• More than 50 data connectors include connectors to relational databases, NoSQL databases, social media, and other BI tools. This enables MicroStrategy to connect to any other data source to extract insights from it.
• MicroStrategy's Distribution service is so robust that it can send notifications, emails, and send to FTP to different sets of users and locations with a different personalization for each subscription.

Our Finance team has to send alert emails to stakeholders for the open due balance during the first week of every month. The details include the bank account details for transfers, invoice details, and the repo rate.

This used to be done manually. MicroStrategy’s Distribution services became a game changer for us. We send around 1000 emails in 10 minutes. It also provides a mechanism to track the delivery of emails and notify the administrator in case of failure.

Compared to other BI tools in the market, the development time for dashboards, reports, and scorecards for this tool is high.

It has developer and web components that are that the other has. It becomes difficult for a developer to switch between them for development.

Many BI tools enable you to develop a dashboard once, and then view it on various devices, such as web, mobile, and iPad. MicroStrategy dashboards are not auto-sized based on the device. A separate dashboard has to be developed for each device.

For every release, there are new features with new bugs equal to them. The vendor has to come up with quarterly releases, which is good; but the applications in a production environment are unstable because of the frequent upgrades being done.

I have been using MicroStrategy for more than five years.

Until version 10.2, the environment was quite stable. After that, MicroStrategy started releasing new versions on a quarterly basis. This means that more upgrades need to be done on the production environment. This makes the system a little unstable.

With recent releases, MicroStrategy introduced the “Work Fencing” concept for hardware scalability.

MicroStrategy uses PRIME (Parallel Relational In-Memory Engine), which it claims as the “interactive exploration of terabytes of data with millions of users.”

MicroStrategy has been very good in upgrading itself to handle Big Data, both in terms of hardware scalability and the volume of data it can handle. We did not come across any problems in terms of scalability.

Technically, the support team is very strong in terms of troubleshooting the MicroStrategy logs and other system logs. They also suggest a few best practices for better performance and maintaining a stable environment.

However, they ask for too many logs and files if a help request is raised. It would be helpful to have a centralized log.

The time zone of the support team and the development team is usually different. This delays the resolution time.

Prior to switching to MicroStrategy’s Business Intelligence tool, we were using Excel and SQL queries to track business metrics. These solutions required more technical knowledge. There is no centralized ecosystem which can integrate and troubleshoot if there are issues.

We purchased MicroStrategy licenses, expecting our business users to like the seamless experience. MicroStrategy has a mobile component which helps our sales team track and showcase insights to stakeholders without any problems.

MicroStrategy setup requires a few hardware prerequisites, and a few other installations in the system. This include the .NET framework, IIS, etc. Once the prerequisites are met, it is straightforward.

Also, we can install different MicroStrategy components in different servers, assuming that those servers are able to communicate with each other. This avoids the overhead of having traffic on only one server.

I don't have much information on this. MicroStrategy offers two types of license: per user and per device. The licensing is a litter higher compared to other BI players in market.

Apart from MicroStrategy, there are a few other players in the market which are actually doing good. There are the in-memory BI tools like QlikView and Tableau, and traditional BI tools like Cognos.

We have found some aspects of MicroStrategy which actually suit our business model, so we went with it.

There are around 10+ good BI players in the market. All of them have their own strengths in terms of visualizations, predictive analysis, self-service, mobility, scalability, etc.

I would definitely recommend this product, but I would suggest that companies identify what exactly the business users are looking for in a Business Intelligence tool, and try to evaluate the tools abilities and licensing cost before actually purchasing the tool.

Valuable features include advanced SQL Engine, Reusable Metadata, Data Exploration/Viz, Production Grade Report/Dashboard Automation, Mobile, Integration with rich SDK/API, and In Memory BI high performance.

Made self-service BI/Data Exploration possible for the end-user.

Simplified development tools.

Removing Flash from web interfaces

I have been using this solution for 18 years.

No, very easy to install and manage environment.

No issues with stability.

No, highly scalable on all sizes of data and platforms.

4 out of 5 – they have great tech support but are sometimes challenging to work with on contracts and pricing.

5 out of 5 – they go above and beyond to resolve or enhance their product.

I have worked with many other solutions but keep choosing MicroStrategy whenever the requirements are complex. There are many niche players that may excel in certain specific areas but if you need to push the boundaries and have a complete BI solution that is not focused in a niche such as data visualization then MicroStrategy is a leader that should be considered.

You need to understand the platform but once you have this understanding the installation is very straightforward.

Internal/Off-shore vendor (Infocepts – 5 out of 5 off-shore vendor founded by ex-MicroStrategy employees).

It is providing both internal and external reporting for the business that was not previously possible. The first external reporting solution was delivered in less than 1 month of development.

$150k for a single CPU of web/iserver capacity. Currently all development/administration is supported by a single off-shore developer at a rate of $35/hr. The new pricing model has allowed for simplified web user pricing allowing all web functionality to be available to all users.

We evaluated Tableau, QlikView, Cognos, BO, SSRS?MS Power BI, OBIEE, TIBCO.

If your BI requirements are complex and require significant integration into internal applications this can be achieved using MicroStrategy and the SDK but the appropriate skilled resources will be required throughout the implementation. Do not expect to be successful just throwing a java developer at the SDK work who has no previous experience with the MicroStrategy SDK.

We use MicroStrategy to generate enterprise-wide reports. It is used by all the store managers to track sales, stock, inventory, etc.

It helps all the store managers and supply chain people to obtain a view of the data and plan the next week, the next month, quarters, and so on.

We are still learning on our journey of how to roll out Visual Insights to all the business users and how much data input capability should be given to them.

In 2018, we plan on using Visual Insights heavily.

The most valuable features are drill down, dashboards, documents, bringing everything under one roof, and visualizations.

We are using mobile analytics, and it is amazing.

While we prefer having the analytic capabilities in single platform, it does depends on the use case.

More visualizations out-of-the-box. That would be my top priority. For example, the cool things that you see in 3D visualizations, if those could be made. If some of those things could be made available in MicroStrategy, that would be great. 

It is pretty good. We have not had any issues so far.

Scalability is the best thing. You can really scale. It has already scaled to approximately 2000 stores and more than 15,000 users.  

Whenever we have had some issues, we have contacted the technical support, and they are knowledgeable. However, it never really gets to the point where we are contacting them, because a lot of resources are available on MicroStrategy's support site, which is helpful. 

I was not involved in the initial setup.

MicroStrategy was a little late with Visual Insights, but it is one tool which you can find everything.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

1. Technology
2. Flexibility
3. More partnerships.