Solution Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5
Sep 16, 2025
I prefer to stay anonymous. You can leave the company name, but hide my name. Everything via email would be great for Microsoft if they have questions or comments about my review. This is going to be a private number soon. I do not want to become a reference for them. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Microsoft MDS a seven out of ten.
Senior Data Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Feb 21, 2025
I would recommend Microsoft MDS to companies that need a simple solution at no cost. However, it is not suitable for those who require master data management with automated mapping or AI-enabled capabilities. Overall, I would rate Microsoft MDS four out of ten.
If requirements are not clear or if you need a flexible solution that allows for innovation and non-typical master data management, Microsoft MDS is an excellent tool. It is also suitable for projects where you need to implement a solution without strict predefined formats. However, for clients with very specific needs and predefined structures, other tools like SAP or Oracle might be more appropriate. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
senior consultant at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
MSP
Top 20
May 13, 2024
The data modeling capabilities are sufficient. We utilize it sparingly, primarily for generating a few schemas. Additionally, these schemas have remained unchanged. I recommend the solution because GUI is good. it is very user-friendly. It doesn't require much knowledge to use the service directly, making it a pretty easy-to-use solution. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
My advice to people who are considering using Microsoft MDS is to examine what your specific needs are. If you are starting from scratch or working in a cloud-based environment, you might explore other options like Dynamics 365. But if you have existing data and need to clean, manage, or enhance it before using it in a data warehouse or for business intelligence, MDS can be useful. It depends on where you are in your data journey and your destination. Overall, I would rate the product a ten out of ten. If used properly, it is a great tool.
Senior Product Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Apr 6, 2023
There are a lot of factors to consider before considering using Microsoft MDS. It depends on your budget, availability, and familiarity with the system. We decided to use it because it does the job we need it to do. It may not be the most convenient option, but it is getting us in the right direction. Overall, I would rate the solution a five out of ten because I find it outdated and not user-friendly at all.
We're a customer and end-user. We have the solution deployed on-premises and on Amazon Cloud. It's Microsoft, so it's not always perfect, however, is a good step to start with. It's easy to start with MDS. You just have to be aware that you will have some issues. I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
The advantage of Microsoft MDS is that it's so handy, so customizable, and easy to use. It has all the basics and given that we are a directly integral system, everyone is able to use Excel. The advantage is that you can be working on bulk data and creating a batch, we can upload or deliver activities. If one system has reached capacity or has stopped, then the whole system stops and it is quite difficult to solve the problem. My advice is that if you want to use custom UI, then make sure you work on Internet Explorer. Without it you can't use a structured MDS UI. In place of Internet Explorer create your own custom UI by the .NET feature.
Global Data Architecture and Data Science Director at FH
Real User
ModeratorTop 10
Apr 1, 2021
In my current organization, I'm recommending reviewing all of the product cataloging master data management. This is what I would recommend for anybody who wants to do master data management, they use this product. I would rate Microsoft MDS an eight out of ten.
Sr. Database Developer at Hill Physicians Medical Group
Real User
Mar 4, 2021
I would highly recommend this solution. It is a very good tool. You don't need to implement a true MDM in order to implement MDS. You can automate a digital transformation where you can migrate your Excel and Access databases that are lying in silos to MDS. This way you would have true data governance, security, change tracking (CDC), and security versioning. There are a lot of features that are very beneficial. We'll be staying with MDS. I would rate Microsoft MDS an eight out of ten.
If I have to rate this program from one to ten, I will give it an eight. My advice to others would be to use an activity log. They should have a user account and they should keep track of every user that logs on, and the platform should keep track of it.
Note tThere is some level of logging - you can look in the security area and some level of access although limited. Also you can write your own extensions in the triggers so you could customize the logging yourself.
System Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Dec 15, 2019
I am an information security analyst and I research to stay up on the trends and to see what is happing on the market now because we run our Firewalls. I would recommend getting the correct licenses. From the article, they should get to know which licenses, because there are different agents of licensing. Ensure they get the right size servers. Ensure that they have the best technical expertise, to help with the implementation. Microsoft products are quite good. We run innovation Microsoft 2017 and it's pretty impressive. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Data Architect at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jul 31, 2019
We use the private cloud version of the solution. The beauty with Master Data Services is that it's centralized in one place and the problem with other solutions is that most of them have been created in house. There is an overlap between them. The big advantage of this solution is with regards to a data warehouse. What you can do is cleanse the data and make it consistent throughout the warehouse before it gets into it, so it guarantees consistency. I'd recommend Microsoft MDS. It's the best MDM tool out there. I would rate the solution seven out of ten.
Please see my review on itcentralstation. I have used this product since beta for most of the last decade.
Bottom line: Its sweet spot is reference data. Attempting to use it for large scale customer data or products will likely be very problematic.
The tool is integrated into Dynamics AX but there is not clear direction by Microsoft for improving and supporting the product as a stand alone long term. Use it with that knowledge and look for any indication from Microsoft that it will continue to support it or deprecate it.
I would not recommend using any version prior to 2016.
Curious people rate it 8 out of 10, but then what are they comparing it against? No MDM solution? It's really not going to compare to most MDM tools out there today but then...expect to pay a lot of $$ for other tools and this tool is usually free for most MSFT customers and may work totally fine - just depends on your needs. It has served my shop well for many years. I've used many MDM tools and used worse as well as expensive like Oracle's tool that they got from Hyperion. That said, this tool's future is uncertain and it has a LOT of bugs and no significant enhancement for a number of years. And it is very limited in what it does well as well as the volume of data it can handle. But if it meets your needs then it makes a lot more sense than many overly complicated MDM tools if those are overkill for your situation.
Microsoft Master Data Services (MDS) is an SQL server solution for master data. MDS enables users to organize and manage a business's master set of data into models while also creating rules for updating the data and control over who can edit it. In addition, the master dataset can be shared with other people in your organization through Excel.
In Master Data Services, you create a model, which is the highest level container in the structure of your master data. This model can then be used...
I prefer to stay anonymous. You can leave the company name, but hide my name. Everything via email would be great for Microsoft if they have questions or comments about my review. This is going to be a private number soon. I do not want to become a reference for them. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Microsoft MDS a seven out of ten.
I would recommend Microsoft MDS to companies that need a simple solution at no cost. However, it is not suitable for those who require master data management with automated mapping or AI-enabled capabilities. Overall, I would rate Microsoft MDS four out of ten.
If requirements are not clear or if you need a flexible solution that allows for innovation and non-typical master data management, Microsoft MDS is an excellent tool. It is also suitable for projects where you need to implement a solution without strict predefined formats. However, for clients with very specific needs and predefined structures, other tools like SAP or Oracle might be more appropriate. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
The system is very efficient for data management. I rate it a nine out of ten.
The data modeling capabilities are sufficient. We utilize it sparingly, primarily for generating a few schemas. Additionally, these schemas have remained unchanged. I recommend the solution because GUI is good. it is very user-friendly. It doesn't require much knowledge to use the service directly, making it a pretty easy-to-use solution. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
My advice to people who are considering using Microsoft MDS is to examine what your specific needs are. If you are starting from scratch or working in a cloud-based environment, you might explore other options like Dynamics 365. But if you have existing data and need to clean, manage, or enhance it before using it in a data warehouse or for business intelligence, MDS can be useful. It depends on where you are in your data journey and your destination. Overall, I would rate the product a ten out of ten. If used properly, it is a great tool.
There are a lot of factors to consider before considering using Microsoft MDS. It depends on your budget, availability, and familiarity with the system. We decided to use it because it does the job we need it to do. It may not be the most convenient option, but it is getting us in the right direction. Overall, I would rate the solution a five out of ten because I find it outdated and not user-friendly at all.
I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
I rate Microsoft MDS a nine out of ten.
We're a customer and end-user. We have the solution deployed on-premises and on Amazon Cloud. It's Microsoft, so it's not always perfect, however, is a good step to start with. It's easy to start with MDS. You just have to be aware that you will have some issues. I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
The advantage of Microsoft MDS is that it's so handy, so customizable, and easy to use. It has all the basics and given that we are a directly integral system, everyone is able to use Excel. The advantage is that you can be working on bulk data and creating a batch, we can upload or deliver activities. If one system has reached capacity or has stopped, then the whole system stops and it is quite difficult to solve the problem. My advice is that if you want to use custom UI, then make sure you work on Internet Explorer. Without it you can't use a structured MDS UI. In place of Internet Explorer create your own custom UI by the .NET feature.
I rate Microsoft MDS a nine out of ten.
In my current organization, I'm recommending reviewing all of the product cataloging master data management. This is what I would recommend for anybody who wants to do master data management, they use this product. I would rate Microsoft MDS an eight out of ten.
I would highly recommend this solution. It is a very good tool. You don't need to implement a true MDM in order to implement MDS. You can automate a digital transformation where you can migrate your Excel and Access databases that are lying in silos to MDS. This way you would have true data governance, security, change tracking (CDC), and security versioning. There are a lot of features that are very beneficial. We'll be staying with MDS. I would rate Microsoft MDS an eight out of ten.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Microsoft MDS an eight. I'd give it an 8 and not a 10 because it lacks some features, such as machine learning.
If I have to rate this program from one to ten, I will give it an eight. My advice to others would be to use an activity log. They should have a user account and they should keep track of every user that logs on, and the platform should keep track of it.
Note tThere is some level of logging - you can look in the security area and some level of access although limited. Also you can write your own extensions in the triggers so you could customize the logging yourself.
I am an information security analyst and I research to stay up on the trends and to see what is happing on the market now because we run our Firewalls. I would recommend getting the correct licenses. From the article, they should get to know which licenses, because there are different agents of licensing. Ensure they get the right size servers. Ensure that they have the best technical expertise, to help with the implementation. Microsoft products are quite good. We run innovation Microsoft 2017 and it's pretty impressive. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
We use the private cloud version of the solution. The beauty with Master Data Services is that it's centralized in one place and the problem with other solutions is that most of them have been created in house. There is an overlap between them. The big advantage of this solution is with regards to a data warehouse. What you can do is cleanse the data and make it consistent throughout the warehouse before it gets into it, so it guarantees consistency. I'd recommend Microsoft MDS. It's the best MDM tool out there. I would rate the solution seven out of ten.
Please see my review on itcentralstation. I have used this product since beta for most of the last decade.
Bottom line: Its sweet spot is reference data. Attempting to use it for large scale customer data or products will likely be very problematic.
The tool is integrated into Dynamics AX but there is not clear direction by Microsoft for improving and supporting the product as a stand alone long term. Use it with that knowledge and look for any indication from Microsoft that it will continue to support it or deprecate it.
I would not recommend using any version prior to 2016.
Curious people rate it 8 out of 10, but then what are they comparing it against? No MDM solution? It's really not going to compare to most MDM tools out there today but then...expect to pay a lot of $$ for other tools and this tool is usually free for most MSFT customers and may work totally fine - just depends on your needs. It has served my shop well for many years. I've used many MDM tools and used worse as well as expensive like Oracle's tool that they got from Hyperion. That said, this tool's future is uncertain and it has a LOT of bugs and no significant enhancement for a number of years. And it is very limited in what it does well as well as the volume of data it can handle. But if it meets your needs then it makes a lot more sense than many overly complicated MDM tools if those are overkill for your situation.