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MicroStrategy Analytics is a platform for Business Intelligence (BI) and self-service analytics. It enables organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make better business decisions.
MicroStrategy currently has 3 versions:
- MicroStrategy Analytics Enterprise: Enterprise-grade business intelligence
- MicroStrategy Analytics Desktop: Free self-service visual analytics
- MicroStrategy Analytics Express: Free cloud-based self-service visual analyticshttps://dudodiprj2sv7.cloudfront.net/product-logos/qq/iH/PZORMI8Q2P14.PNGMicroStrategyMSTR Makes Data Analysis a Breeze2018-12-10T23:55:23.265ZWe use MSTR organization wide to track KPIs for our brands. We have several dashboards set up based on brand and channel. MSTR allows for real time monitoring of KPIs and provides views of performance over time. It eliminates the need to constantly run queries to check results, saving countless hours of employee time.,Visual representation of data
Ease of use for setting up and modifying dashboards
Intuitive UX for non-experienced users,Sharing custom dashboards,10,8,6Verified UserIntensive and reliable tool2018-01-21T17:58:01.848ZMicrostrategy Analytics is widely used in the company across all departments. Different level of access can be provided to different level of responsible persons. It is a very easy tool to get access of past data with different reports and presenting it with the help of variety of dashboard and VIs. Data collection and analysis is an essential function of it.,Data collection/data access- The tool uses different attributes and metrics to generate data for you in a required format with required filters.
Data Visualization- The tool has great function of creating Dashboards which are specially useful for higher management to review it.
Data Analytics- With great amount of functions, it does most of the excel work within itself. Eliminates excel in most of the fronts.,Better user interface- The only thing that comes out is there is a high scope of modifying user interface. Currently it is not as good as Tableau in terms of user interface.,8,salesforce and Tableau,8,9,Salesforce Analytics Cloud, WebEx Meetings, SAS Advanced AnalyticsRishi Bavishi, CSSGB, CAPMMicrostrategy , very good but..2017-10-25T15:12:05.199ZWe are trying to use it across all the organization as the only tool where you can find all the data of the company, making all kind of dashboards for managers and final users. We've also made "live" dashboard showing the status of the company.
The major problem is to make end users move from Excel to MS. The company leaves all this effort to the IT Team and does not make this a strategic decision.,Easy of use
Has improved a lot the visualization of data
Fast,For use it take a lot of time to prepare the correct data. I don't know it there is some MicroSrategy magic solution to make it faster
Better comunication with client
Improve dashboards, losing with competitors,9,,8,7Gonzalo SegarraMicroStrategy Review2017-10-18T15:03:56.795ZIt is being used across our health center in every department, from admin to ops to clinics. We are trying to use it with our scheduling program's data feed to solve TAT issues, staffing issues, and tracking issues. We've implemented several new policies around appointment cancellations due to findings in Microstrategy data. We also take in a feed from our EMR system for patient data research.,I think the dashboards are quite helpful to visualize on the spot data.
Creation of facts and attributes is simple - I have no programming experience and was still able to create and modify these items.
Scheduling reports to be run on a daily, weekly, or hourly basis is simple. It provides updated data on a timed basis with no need to go back into the program.,The graph options are not as robust as an Excel user might want.
The metadata layer can sometimes be slower, and it takes a long time for reports to run.
Viewing the data feed entered can be cumbersome at times, in terms of validation with reports.,8,Tableau Online,5,6,Tableau OnlineVerified UserMicroStrategy - excellent tool in the right hands2017-03-01T21:57:41.823ZWe use MicroStrategy to provide a business intelligence solution for our clients. We use it to create reports and dashboards that our clients can use to analyze their business.,Customized dashboards between the desktop and web applications.
Shared objects which allows reusability in a number of different reports.,Web tool still doesn't have all the customization possible in the developer application.
Rigid star scheme requirements creates complications in unstructured data.
I would love to see out of the box "what-if" scenario functionality.,7,7,8Brandon FitzpatrickWindows, Mac
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MicroStrategy Analytics
212 Ratings
Score 7.6 out of 101
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MicroStrategy Analytics
212 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 7.6 out of 101
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Reviews (1-25 of 41)
December 10, 2018
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "MSTR Makes Data Analysis a Breeze"
Verified User
Employee in Marketing
Financial Services Company, 501-1000 employeesWe use MSTR organization wide to track KPIs for our brands. We have several dashboards set up based on brand and channel. MSTR allows for real time monitoring of KPIs and provides views of performance over time. It eliminates the need to constantly run queries to check results, saving countless hours of employee time.
- Visual representation of data
- Ease of use for setting up and modifying dashboards
- Intuitive UX for non-experienced users
- Sharing custom dashboards
MSTR is great for any organization that is looking for a way to deliver complicated data in an uncomplicated way. From business teams to marketing and finance, several departments benefit from using MSTR to keep track of KPIs enabling teams to make optimizations along the way. MSTR provides great visual representations of data enabling team members to distill thousands of data points into easily digestible charts and graphs.
January 21, 2018
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "Intensive and reliable tool"
Forecasting Analyst
HiltonHospitality, 10,001+ employees
Microstrategy Analytics is widely used in the company across all departments. Different level of access can be provided to different level of responsible persons. It is a very easy tool to get access of past data with different reports and presenting it with the help of variety of dashboard and VIs. Data collection and analysis is an essential function of it.
- Data collection/data access- The tool uses different attributes and metrics to generate data for you in a required format with required filters.
- Data Visualization- The tool has great function of creating Dashboards which are specially useful for higher management to review it.
- Data Analytics- With great amount of functions, it does most of the excel work within itself. Eliminates excel in most of the fronts.
- Better user interface- The only thing that comes out is there is a high scope of modifying user interface. Currently it is not as good as Tableau in terms of user interface.
Well suited for: Creating Dashboards- This can handle high amount of data that too good amount of data manipulation flexibility. Dashboards can be modified pretty quickly and addition of data is also easy. Mirroring same dashboards is also easy where new view can be created and can be saved. There are lot of other benefits as well in terms of accessing data easily.
October 25, 2017
MicroStrategy Analytics: "Microstrategy , very good but.."
Sub-Gerente de Desarrollo
Hospital AlemanHospital & Health Care, 1001-5000 employees
We are trying to use it across all the organization as the only tool where you can find all the data of the company, making all kind of dashboards for managers and final users. We've also made "live" dashboard showing the status of the company.
The major problem is to make end users move from Excel to MS. The company leaves all this effort to the IT Team and does not make this a strategic decision.
The major problem is to make end users move from Excel to MS. The company leaves all this effort to the IT Team and does not make this a strategic decision.
- Easy of use
- Has improved a lot the visualization of data
- Fast
- For use it take a lot of time to prepare the correct data. I don't know it there is some MicroSrategy magic solution to make it faster
- Better comunication with client
- Improve dashboards, losing with competitors
Very well suited for corporate reports, centralized info.
I don't find it very easy for end users not involved in the transformation of reports.
I don't find it very easy for end users not involved in the transformation of reports.
October 18, 2017
MicroStrategy Analytics: "MicroStrategy Review"
Verified User
Analyst in Quality Assurance
Hospital & Health Care Company, 501-1000 employeesIt is being used across our health center in every department, from admin to ops to clinics. We are trying to use it with our scheduling program's data feed to solve TAT issues, staffing issues, and tracking issues. We've implemented several new policies around appointment cancellations due to findings in Microstrategy data. We also take in a feed from our EMR system for patient data research.
- I think the dashboards are quite helpful to visualize on the spot data.
- Creation of facts and attributes is simple - I have no programming experience and was still able to create and modify these items.
- Scheduling reports to be run on a daily, weekly, or hourly basis is simple. It provides updated data on a timed basis with no need to go back into the program.
- The graph options are not as robust as an Excel user might want.
- The metadata layer can sometimes be slower, and it takes a long time for reports to run.
- Viewing the data feed entered can be cumbersome at times, in terms of validation with reports.
It is appropriate when wishing to show big data to a group that needs to make informed decisions quickly, and that does not have a technical background and cannot get bogged down in percentages and technicalities. For those that want it, however, Microstrategy provides gridded reports that make detailed examination of data easy. Both are simple to create.
March 01, 2017
MicroStrategy Analytics: "MicroStrategy - excellent tool in the right hands"
Developer
IntelliCogInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
We use MicroStrategy to provide a business intelligence solution for our clients. We use it to create reports and dashboards that our clients can use to analyze their business.
- Customized dashboards between the desktop and web applications.
- Shared objects which allows reusability in a number of different reports.
- Web tool still doesn't have all the customization possible in the developer application.
- Rigid star scheme requirements creates complications in unstructured data.
- I would love to see out of the box "what-if" scenario functionality.
Great if you have a data warehouse built as a star schema. Less useful with unstructured data.
October 17, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics: "Integrated and efficient analytics solution"
BI Architect
American ExpressFinancial Services, 10,001+ employees
Microstrategy is extensively used within my organization and other retail and finance clients I have worked with.
MSTR is an efficient tool with numerous analytical, reporting and visualization features all clubbed in one - helps deliver grid reports, dashboards and mobile reports. We have used this for dynamic sourced reports and self analytics as well widely.
MSTR is an efficient tool with numerous analytical, reporting and visualization features all clubbed in one - helps deliver grid reports, dashboards and mobile reports. We have used this for dynamic sourced reports and self analytics as well widely.
- Integrated solution for delivering different types of reports through multiple mediums like web, mobile or distribution services.
- Unique Schema and public objects concept saves development costs by allowing reusable components and maintenance across.
- Having end to end MSTR implemented eliminates the need to look at different tools for in memory and visualization.
- Version control and parallel development limitation- I understand it somehow conflicts the architecture specialities but point to be thought over.
- Visual Insights capabilities to compete with Tableau like reports.
- MSTR services and technical support teams response time - not always a concern but can definitely be improved.
Better suited for:
For high volume and large number of reporting fields.
For requirements where multiple modes of report delivery is required for ex: web, mobile and emails.
Dynamic sourcing and self analytics with existing objects avoiding redevelopment efforts.
Less appropriate:
For small scale analytics considering cheaper options of analytics tools available.
Creates complexity for a uncoordinated and distributed development team considering version control and Schema integration issues.
For high volume and large number of reporting fields.
For requirements where multiple modes of report delivery is required for ex: web, mobile and emails.
Dynamic sourcing and self analytics with existing objects avoiding redevelopment efforts.
Less appropriate:
For small scale analytics considering cheaper options of analytics tools available.
Creates complexity for a uncoordinated and distributed development team considering version control and Schema integration issues.
June 11, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics: "MicroStrategy - Why, When & Where ??"
Business Intelligence Analyst
Match.comInternet, 201-500 employees
Microstrategy is used as a reporting solution in my work environment. Microstrategy is used to interact on Hadoop, Microsoft SQL Server Tables, and SSAS MDX Cubes. Microstrategy's Visual Insight is used as a self service tool replacing Pivot tables & graph building in Excel.
- Visual Insight is a very good tool for data discovery and for create quick dashboard presentation. This is is basically a online web based portal where you have capability to quickly slice & dice the data . Also it provides you options to create derived metrics & derived attribute (MSTR 10) with various mathematical or statistical functions. One of the major mention would be the map based data visualization where you can plot data based on Latitude & Longitude.Also with MSTR 10 following limitations were removed i) using hyperlink ii) HTML 5 is implemented instead of Flash ,so easy to be rendered in mobile too iii) Adding images is possible for hardcoding company logo & symbols
- Drilling Capabilities. This requires some good backend data modeling. Once you bring in all the facts and dimensions you are supposed to establish relationship between them & create hierarchies. Then it would be easy to drill more & more. For example - Device hierarchy - (Device Used by User--> Browser-->Operating System)
- Data Source Connectivity.
- Enterprise Manager is basically BI to BI environment which is used by administrators or executives to track reporting usage, report performance,developer efficiency or frequency of usage & thousands of other statistics which proves to be very helpful in monitoring the efficiency of the whole environment. Once you set up Enterprise miner( which is a bit tricky) you will be able to access all the in built documents or you can custom built dashboard based on your usage
- Visual Insight have multiple limitations. Few of them are listed here - i)Cannot change default graph colors ii) text/graph formatting are very very limited iii)Add metric to Color by / Thresholds is not possible iv)one of the worst limitation of the VI in older versions is that it is not possible to create filters that apply only to a specific visualization. For example if there are 4 graphs in one dashboard & if you have filters then those filters would be applicable for all of them
- Some formatting options are not there either on Web or Developer especially while dealing with a document. We have to use both Web & Developer to solve issues.
- While connecting with MDX cube reporting loses a lot of features.
MicroStrategy Analytics is not only a visualization layer but also data modeling tool itself. So you can bring in all your facts and dimensions and define the relationship in architect mode to build intelligent cubes. It shouldn't be mixed up with a visualization tool like Tableau which doesn't have any other capability (data architect and mining). Companies who need to use it only as a visualization layer tool shouldn't use MicroStrategy.
September 16, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "MSTR good for a structured environment"
BI Program Manager
Caseys General StoreRetail, 10,001+ employees
MSTR is being used by approximately three departments w/in Casey's. We plan on having MSTR be an enterprise-wide solution
- MSTR Analytics does visualization very well.
- Ad-Hoc analysis
- As w/ any tool - the data underneath MSTR has to governed and structured correctly to use in a self service environment
- MSTR almost demands that you have an MSTR Administrator on staff to keep the semantic layer fresh
MSTR is suited for a well-governed, solid data environment. While I believe that MSTR, and the rest of BI as a whole, wants to move towards a more self-service business user environment - MSTR still needs a technical staff to support that self service
July 29, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "Simplifying reporting needs"
Manager, Store Labor
Guitar CenterRetail, 10,001+ employees
Microstrategy is currently being used by several different departments within the organization. It makes our reporting easier, where it provides the flexibility to automate much of it, as well as provide an easy to use interface for non sql savvy employees. It solves many of our reporting needs
- Central location for reporting, makes it easier for several different departments to access different information
- Automated reporting - allows us to schedule customized reports
- Well formatted reports that are easy to run
- My organization is on an older version of the tool with a lot less bells and whistles
- If an employee is familiar with SQL enough, they can avoid using microstrategy
- No other major cons
Microstrategy is great for organizations that are looking to empower all types of employees with the ability to retrieve relevant data for their business functions.
April 28, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "Comprehensive enterprise BI Tool"
Senior Analyst
dunnhumbyRetail, 1001-5000 employees
MicroStrategy Analytics is used by our organization to create highly interactive dashboards and reports with cutting edge visualizations. Currently, the front end and dashboards are being developed by only a single department but reports and dashboards are consumed across the organization and even clients.
The main advantage of MicroStrategy Analytics is that it can be accessed online through a web browser which eliminates the need to carry heavy Excel files. Also, the reports and dashboards are updated in real time which was not possible with Excel based dashboards.
The main advantage of MicroStrategy Analytics is that it can be accessed online through a web browser which eliminates the need to carry heavy Excel files. Also, the reports and dashboards are updated in real time which was not possible with Excel based dashboards.
- It helps create dashboards that are personalized to a particular type of user. The access to the specific sections of dashboards and reports can be controlled and only the intended audience can access that information. This helps with distributing the same dashboard to different departments and even competitors.
- The reports are completely responsive to different devices and can be accessed via any device of any resolution. Also, MicroStrategy offers a vast range of power visualizations like heat maps and can also connect with third party applications like Google Maps for additional functionality. Also, this functionality is present even on mobile devices.
- With its Online Analytical Processing capabilities, users can modify the reports by slicing and manipulating the data as per their needs without executing the SQL query in the backend. This helps in saving a lot of development time as individual users can modify the report online by using filters and slicers without requiring the coding know how.
- ESRI ArcGIS maps can only be integrated and accessed with internet connectivity which becomes a limitation when using only with LAN connectivity.
- The community/forum is not very active with a limited number of users and low quality content.
- Some functionalities are missing from the web version and are only present in the desktop version. Also, dashboards over the web still lack integration with HTML5.
MicroStrategy is well suited when reports have a wider audience but some parts need to be hidden from a specific audience. When there are very stringent deadlines to develop a new report or a dashboard, MicroStrategy should be avoided as it has a longer development time when compared to alternatives like Tableau. Also, when the reports are to be consumed while on the go, MicroStrategy has an edge over other alternatives.
March 04, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "From zero to hero."
Business Intelligence Contractor, Author, Trainer
self employedComputer Software, 1-10 employees
- Build a complete Business Intelligence solution from the ground up. They provide desktop, web and mobile interfaces.
- Analyze and report on large volumes of data from an extensive number of source databases.
- Provides a full Software Development Kit (SDK) to personalize, customize and write your own BI applications and web sites.
- Support for HTML5 is still at the beginning. The latest features were developed with Adobe Flash, which sometimes is not the best and fastest solution. HTML5 with CSS and SVG would probably be more portable and a smoother experience to the user.
- I personally would like to see native OAuth 1.0 and 2.0 Support. And the ability to directly attach JSON data feeds like Google provided data.
- Web Services documentation could be improved and expanded with more examples.
Be sure to grasp the basic concepts from the very beginning. A complete and updated ER Diagram of the data warehouse is needed. Read the manuals, as MicroStrategy is a very complex product and cannot be learned by trial and error. There is a book, which was recently published by PACKT, about the whole Business Intelligence development process: http://amzn.to/1by3HAO
June 27, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "Enterprise BI Solution - Not an Analytics solution"
Analista BI Senior
COA S AInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Microstrategy is used in one of our banking clients. It's used by different areas, some use it for alerts. Others use it as a dashboard solution or for ad-hoc reporting.
- The governance and security layer, with the metadata layer.
- Easy ad-hoc reporting creations.
- Strong dashboard options.
- Merging data from different sources has been improved a lot but it's not easy to create a query manually.
- Training metrics - it's not easy to use for users. But the new method of R integration could change that.
Is well suited if an organization needs a centralized and strong BI solution for data exploration.
March 01, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics: "MicroStrategy Reviewed from the Trenches"
Sr MicroStrategy/BI Consultant
CablevisionTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees
MicroStrategy is currently being used throughout the organization to address various ad-hoc requests.
- Ad-hoc analysis
- Dashboarding and visualizations
- There's no clean tree/hierarchical display of attributes that allows me to see the entire tree on one screen. This also translates to a report with one column showing the indentation for nested categories.
- The interaction and user interface with dealing with a prompted report is less than desirable. Many users hate the interface and find it difficult to use.
- Not all features are available in web when designing dashboards. You often have to bounce back and forth from Desktop to Web in order to get to the option you're looking for.
MicroStrategy is good for dashboarding and mobile. The software offers a lot of functionality right out of the box and provides the users with many options to easily get at their data.
March 01, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics: "MicroStrategy - Retail made easy"
Planning Manager Ecommerce
kate spade201-500 employees
- User Friendly
- Abillity to manage large volumes of data from multiple sources
- Narrowcast Reporting & Dashboard options
- Creating documents is very technical and requires training
- Graphing tools are difficult to use
- Setting up alerts and email distributions could be easier
I would make sure you understand what information the users will need and what level of detail is needed to ensure that the integration and setup process is configured with the end use in mind. Having examples of reports and information you already produce, where it is coming from and how it is used will help set you up correctly from the beginning avoiding timely changes later on.
March 01, 2016
MicroStrategy Analytics: "Microstrategy... The Macro Problem Solver"
Senior BI Developer
HMS1001-5000 employees
- The Microstrategy web front end is easy to navigate which makes it even easier to train our users on.
- Microstrategy Visual Insight has added a new dimension to our content which allow for a story to be told about the data.
- Microstrategy Mobile allows our executive team to analyze key KPI's at the swipe of a finger.
- I think that although Visual Insight is a new tool that it probably has the most upside to it. Adding features that are available on the Report Services side would be great for VI.
MicroStrategy is well suited for companies that have at least 100+ users with varying skill sets. It is a very versatile tool with many access levels from Pro to Analyst; depending on your experience. Features such as subscriptions, visual insight, and mobile are very well received across departments for reporting. Transactional services is useful for light collaborative needs such as notating certain records. In my opinion MicroStrategy isn't suited for companies looking for heavy financial reporting or collaborative efforts.
Overall I have been using MicroStrategy for a little over 10 years and it has proven to fit most all of my reporting needs.
Overall I have been using MicroStrategy for a little over 10 years and it has proven to fit most all of my reporting needs.
August 17, 2015
MicroStrategy Analytics: "MicroStrategy 10 - the best in BI"
BI / DW Architect
AchieversComputer Software, 201-500 employees
We're building a new data warehouse and reporting system. MicroStrategy will be at the forefront of our strategy, providing a robust, multi-language, multi-tenant architecture for our customers and internally. It replaces our Excel, CSV based reporting company-wide.
- Without a doubt, it scales, it is robust and the performance is great.
- The latest enhancements for version 10 (like replacing Flash with HTML 5) address some previous issues and concerns.
- They've closed the gap they had with Tableau and similar products with the introduction of Desktop, while still providing governed, data discovery. Something Tableau lacks.
- It is hard for me to point out room for improvement. Version 10 just came out and I haven't had the chance to fully experiment with it, but it looks very good so far.
For us, multi-language, multi-tenant were some key features, but obviously many questions come to mind, depending on the needs, such as platform, big data support, data-blending, data-mashups, language, customizations, etc.
April 08, 2015
MicroStrategy Analytics: "Ground level perspective of MicroStrategy"
Professional Services Engineer
Chartwise Medical SystemsInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
We use MicroStrategy Analytics in many departments, the span of support goes from Business users to IT support. This tool is intended to be the "one stop shop" for all reporting needs. We are able to connect many different data sources which tend to be common in large companies. The current implementation met our needs in the past and we are adapting to use it better and more efficiently for future needs. I believe when configured correctly, this product can meet all requirements for our department and all other departments.
- Extremely fast and reliable sql generation, report and document development.
- Flexibility and integration with nearly all data sources.
- Self reliant product, many out of the box products that allow easy maintenance, development, and monitoring.
- Cost of product is more reasonable than many other in its class.
- Reports and documents produced can be pixel perfect and allow for extremely custom dashboards and scorecards.
- There are many tools and products in the whole Analytics suite, I find this cumbersome and would like to see all these tools brought together
- There is no version control built into the product. Versioning seems outdated and the principle way of handling versions is outdated and I think should be remodeled.
- To a new user, learning the entirety of all MicroStrategy products is difficult and can take a long time to adapt to.
MicroStrategy Analytics is very well suited for small and large companies and for varying degrees of budgets. The price model is fair for the type of features and functionality out of the box. There will have to be someone dedicated to MicroStrategy and the lifecycle of the business data model. It is not a light weight product on the back end, but can be very lightweight to the end users. No-SQL allows the domain experts, people who understand the business and not technology, to analyze and dig at questions without being burdened by asking database experts for advanced SQL generation. I give this product a 9 out of 10 because it is not fully HIPAA compliant and the means to make it HIPAA compliant means we must cripple some basic functionality.
May 11, 2015
MicroStrategy Analytics: ""Enterprise" BI in Microstrategy"
Manager of Web Analytics
Academy Sports + OutdoorsRetail, 10,001+ employees
- Standard KPI reporting.
- Scheduled reporting.
- Simple dashboards.
- Easy report design and creation.
- Discovery - visually dig through the raw data.
- Real-time updates.
- Connections to alternate data sources (APIs, local files).
- Limited visualizations.
- Built-in statistics and forecasting (lack of).
BI is not cheap, sometimes... In many cases the "Enterprise-ness" of MS is not necessary as many smaller competitors are gaining ground quickly (QlikView, Tableau, Birst, etc...) and would make great solutions for companies that do not require the strict rules associated with a larger organization. I would just make sure that as anyone is considering either a new BI install or change that they make sure to look at some of the "new" Big Data toting companies that can add value quickly.
April 29, 2015
MicroStrategy Analytics: "Microstrategy is 'great enough' for business."
Manager, Business Intelligence and Reporting Services
IgnitionOneInternet, 201-500 employees
Microstrategy is our primary BI delivery environment and is being used for the entire organization. We have a unique business case in that our organization is the BI department for hundreds of other organizations; however, attributes, metrics, and nomenclature are different although using the same data set. In addition, our data sets are 10s to 100s of millions of rows of data. Microstrategy scales for large datasets and has just enough flexibility to address these problems.
- Aggregate awareness.
- The ability for the SQL generator to select the correct aggregate table, whether a hierarchy or dates, is invaluable to organizations with less mature database developer resources.
- Delivery of reports, particularly web-based delivery.
- Microstrategy provides the most options for report delivery, scheduling, and formats; a requirement of self-service BI.
- Managing metadata
- Microstrategy's architecture prefers a star schema; this can serve as a virtual ER builder and help locate possible bottlenecks in the database design.
- Scheduling delivery; the use of schedules is very inflexible.
- Instead of building specific delivery objects, a schedule builder (similar to MS Outlook) will push Microstrategy ahead of the competition. The schedule objects add to the maintenance.
- FTP/sFTP delivery options.
- Internal delivery to file systems and availing the file location to FTP is good, but often times external FTP/sFTP is required. Currently, BI engineers have to build external processes to deliver to external FTP.
- Desktop dashboard development; it is a bit disjointed.
- Dashboard development options are different between desktop (now called developer) and web are different. We often have developer and web open at the same time to build dashboards.
- Architect product; still hasn't gained global acceptance for schema management.
- More flexible cross-tab development.
- There's an idea I have about joining data sets where there's aggregate data combined with crosstab data. The example i use is a annual budget (metric) along side monthly spend (metric). Today, the annual budget must be an attribute which means it cannot be used in calculations.
You have to ask if the product you're using can handle large datasets and whether there is flexibility in the delivery of analytics? In addition, how many DBMS's does the product natively support? What is the TCO? MicroStrategy is in the upper tier for each of these questions.
December 04, 2014
MicroStrategy Analytics: "MicroStrategy - Great for some, overkill for most."
Data Warehouse Developer
EEDAREntertainment, 201-500 employees
- MicroStrategy is a very powerful BI tool that, with the right training, can open the world of analysis to consumers, allowing your data to assist the masses with important business decisions, by offering a layer of abstraction between your data and users.
- MicroStrategy does a good job with any type of security model you need to implement. Security can be regulated on a large scale down to the object level. Sending reports to multiple people and being able to limit the data to each of those people based on group security is a phenomenal aspect.
- The flexibility of dashboards, reports and grids within MicroStrategy desktop was remarkable and allowed for a highly customized BI interface.
- Administration and implementation of MicroStrategy exposed fatal flaws in their software as a whole. I expected much, much higher quality software for the licensing/pricing demanded from MicroStrategy.
- Although their tech support staff were always friendly, it took multiple (and I mean multiple) attempts to solve issues, some of which were never resolved. Many of which were drawn out for weeks with support staff asking me to perform troubleshooting steps that I'd outlined I'd already performed in the ticket comments when posted. Just very ineffective support as a whole.
- Their error code base is not well documented. I can't count how many times I found an error being thrown and could not find reference of what that error meant, or was caused by. I found many people complaining about the same error in their community discussion boards, with no responses from anyone at MicroStrategy offering assistance.
It would really depend on the size, scale and needs of your data warehouse BI tool. I would say a good rule of thumb if you have a minimum of 50 users that are going to be constantly creating/slicing/dicing your data, this may be the tool for you. If fewer, then I would suggest investing in a great data warehouse developer and Excel classes for your consumers. Also know that, even though it touts itself as a fast, self-service BI system, unless you have a skilled SQL Developer or DBA, it will be slow as molasses as it creates the tSQL for the queries itself, in a very poorly designed manner.
February 25, 2015
MicroStrategy Analytics: "Microstrategy is not a walk in the park"
Emerson CollegeRetail, 10,001+ employees
- Fantastic features for mobile applications. Out of all of the BI tools out there, it is by far the best on an iPad
- Lots of features for the end-user to custom the output of reports
- In-memory processing allows for very quick responses
- It has a very steep learning curve for report developers. I found it the most difficult to learn from a developer perspective
- A lot of system administration overhead is required. Probably not suitable for a small organization. The cloud version would probably be better.
- The remote training that they offer (such as through the PEP program) is terrible. I had training classes online that would've been better served getting a root canal. Training is one of their most deficient areas in my opinion.
Be very careful before buying the full on-site version of the product. If the sales rep says that it has minimal IT involvement, don't believe it. Ask about cloud options, the different modules that you are buying as part of their proposal, and what kind of training they are offering as part of their bid. If it's online training and not on-site, be very skeptical.
June 10, 2015
"Why we work with MicroStrategy Analytics"
CEO and owner
TWINGOComputer Software, 11-50 employees
We are a reseller and we implement it for our customers in big data for internal, SaaS and OEM environments.
- Visualization
- Very fast query engine
- Complex analytics
- Full BI solution platform
- It should simple and easy to use
- SDK
- Flash move to html
It is very good for big data.
March 18, 2015
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "Go Self Service Business Intelligence"
Founder - Managing Director
Data MastersChemicals, 10,001+ employees
It is currently used by the finance department. It is used for web produced dashboards. We have plans to go mobile soon.
- Metadata layer
- Self service BI
- Easy and fast deployment
- Users community is missing
- Possibility to customize (sdk) is hard to learn
It is not appropriate for small departments.
February 26, 2014
MicroStrategy Analytics Review: "Fine for reporting, not for ad hoc analytics"
Director, Strategy & Analytics
[Stealth Mode Startup]Information Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees
I led a strategy & analytics team at Dell that provided data-driven and actionable recommendations to senior executives. We needed an agile environment for rapid ad hoc analytics on large data sets that combined data from the warehouse with other data sets (market data, 3rd party lists, data from enterprise systems not yet flowing into the warehouse, prior analytics, etc.). MicroStrategy was selected by IT to address these business needs. Unfortunately, MicroStrategy tured out to not be the right tool for the job due to a combination of capability gaps and the constraints imposed by our own IT governance processes.
- Great for reporting that has stabilized (not changing much over time)
- Drill-down/through is great for facilitating an interactive discussion with business leaders
- Report-sharing helps keep the data on the back-end, reducing the emailing of large Excel files
- Our team of business analysts needed a nimble tool for ad hoc analytics. MicroStrategy required greater technical knowledge than our typical user possessed and the process of creating a new view was extremely cumbersome and time-consuming.
- We regularly needed to combine data from our warehouse with other data sources. While MicroStrategy has this capability, the level of technical knowledge required was beyond that of a typical business analyst and took too long. Part of the challenge was that our IT department imposed tight governance on the introduction of new data into the warehouse (which is common), so the minimum SLA on this process was 4 hours. This is simply not acceptable when a senior executive needs analysis for a decision right away. While I cannot fault MicroStrategy for our company's IT governance policy, they should add the capability to combine data from the warehouse with data outside the warehouse without requiring that it be added to the warehouse.
- While MicroStrategy has some light-weight and reasonably priced user licenses, the capabilities we needed for ad hoc analysis required a far more expensive user license.
It really depends on the use case. If the need is simply to standardize reporting, MicroStrategy might meet or even exceed expectations However, if the need is to guide executive decision-making with agile ad hoc analytics, there are other tools that are much better suited to the task.
July 09, 2014
"A partner's view of MicroStrategy Analytics"
Founder
Newtyne Consultancy and Training LtdInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
We support users implement MSTR analytics and actively engage with them to discover the art of the possible.
- Ease of implementation
- Ease of use
- Ease of scale
- Establish direct connection with WPS Software to allow easier take-outs of SAS Software
Somethings to consider are: Do you want to visualize data in a controlled environment? Do you want to go mobile?
MicroStrategy Analytics Scorecard Summary
Feature Scorecard Summary
Pixel Perfect reports (17)
5.8
Customizable dashboards (17)
7.7
Report Formatting Templates (18)
6.6
Drill-down analysis (17)
9.0
Formatting capabilities (18)
8.3
Integration with R or other statistical packages (11)
5.4
Report sharing and collaboration (17)
7.3
Publish to Web (16)
7.6
Publish to PDF (17)
8.5
Report Versioning (14)
6.6
Report Delivery Scheduling (17)
8.4
Delivery to Remote Servers (1)
7
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.) (15)
8.5
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization (14)
7.0
Predictive Analytics (13)
7.3
Multi-User Support (named login) (13)
7.8
Role-Based Security Model (14)
8.7
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete) (14)
9.3
Single Sign-On (SSO) (3)
9.0
Responsive Design for Web Access (14)
7.6
Dedicated iOS Application (11)
8.0
Dedicated Android Application (9)
8.0
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile (14)
7.1
REST API (1)
8
Javascript API (2)
6.7
iFrames (1)
8
Java API (1)
8
Themeable User Interface (UI) (1)
8
Customizable Platform (Open Source) (2)
7.6
About MicroStrategy Analytics
The MicroStrategy platform differs somewhat from competing platforms in that it does not include a data warehouse.
The platform integrates with a wide range of third-party data warehouses however. MicroStrategy also built a free discovery/visualization tool called MicroStrategy Analytics Desktop, which is not completely integrated with the rest of the platform. MicroStrategy has strong mobile and cloud capabilities which are differentiators for the platform. MicroStrategy's cloud offerings are unique in that they host the software in their own data centers and allow customers to keep their data on-premise to alleviate security concerns. Analytics is a platform for Business Intelligence (BI) and self-service analytics. It enables organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make better business decisions.
The platform integrates with a wide range of third-party data warehouses however. MicroStrategy also built a free discovery/visualization tool called MicroStrategy Analytics Desktop, which is not completely integrated with the rest of the platform. MicroStrategy has strong mobile and cloud capabilities which are differentiators for the platform. MicroStrategy's cloud offerings are unique in that they host the software in their own data centers and allow customers to keep their data on-premise to alleviate security concerns. Analytics is a platform for Business Intelligence (BI) and self-service analytics. It enables organizations worldwide to analyze the vast amounts of data stored across their enterprises to make better business decisions.
MicroStrategy currently has 3 versions:
- MicroStrategy Analytics Enterprise: Enterprise-grade business intelligence
- MicroStrategy Analytics Desktop: Free self-service visual analytics
- MicroStrategy Analytics Express: Free cloud-based self-service visual analytics
MicroStrategy Analytics Competitors
Pricing
Has featureFree Trial Available?Yes
Does not have featureFree or Freemium Version Available?No
Does not have featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?No
Entry-level set up fee?No
| On-premise Edition | Pricing Details | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop | $600 | per named user |
| SaaS Edition | Pricing Details | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Web | $600 | per named user |
| Web | $300,000 | per CPU core |
| Mobile | $600 | per named user |
| Mobile | $300,000 | per CPU core |
MicroStrategy Analytics Technical Details
| Deployment Types: | On-premise, SaaS |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems: | Windows, Mac |
| Mobile Application: | No |