Licensed Data Feed FAQ - Client Portal

Solutions

Receiving a data feed

Q: I want to start receiving a fund data feed from Morningstar. Can you tell me what the process is?

If you already have an account executive assigned to you, please contact him or her with regards to your query. If you have not, please send an email with your request to: helpdesk.au@morningstar.com

When we have confirmed your application, we will deliver instructions to you on how to access the test data files from our ftp site. You will then be provided with an initial load file which contains full historical data for active funds on the Morningstar database. Once you have processed the initial load file successfully, we will then supply a daily incremental file on our ftp which contains data updates.

Keywords: Initiating a data feed

Integrity of data feed

Q: I’m having an issue with retrieving files from the data feed that you supply to us. Can you help me?

Please send an email to helpdesk.au@morningstar.com specifying exactly the nature of the problem and what steps you have followed when retrieving files. Please ensure first that IT systems at your company, for example firewall or protocol settings, have not recently changed.

Keywords: Data feed download issues

Availability of data feed files

Q: Is it possible for Morningstar to keep certain data feed files that we receive on the ftp for a longer period of time?

The process for files being moved into the archive directory on the Morningstar FTP for data feeds is the same for all directories.All files are created and posted to FTP at around 10pm each weeknight. The following day (usually by 3pm), all files in the root directory will be moved into the archives directory. They will remain there for another 20 days and will be deleted permanently after such times. Note that files are not created over the weekend.
Unfortunately, as this is standard practice across all clients who receive data feeds from Morningstar Australia and as such an extension to the time availability of files in the root directory for prolonged periods cannot be done.

Keywords: Availability of files

Adding funds to data feed

Q: I’d like for a particular fund to be added to your database so that we can receive it in our feed. Can you do this?

Please send an email to helpdesk.au@morningstar.com specifying exactly which fund you are looking to have added. Our team will then contact the fund manager to ask them to have their fund added into the database.

Keywords: Adding funds to data feed

Fund Suppression

Q. Why have we stopped receiving information/price data for a particular fund?

The first thing to check in this situation is for the current status of the fund in question. This data is provided in record 1R of the data feed. If the fund has a status of finalised or suppressed, we do not provide any updates for the funds.

Q. Why does a particular fund have a status of suppressed?

There are many reasons that a fund can have a status of suppressed. They include:
1. The fund manAger has asked us to remove their fund from the database.
2. The data team has identified a issue with the performance and have suppressed the fund while they are working on fixing the issue.
3. The fund has an unreported dividend that is over 30 days old. The reasoning for this is that while we are able to calculate the month-end return for a fund for the month that it goes ex-dividend, we are not able to calculate the following month-end return with the distribution and ex-price.

Q. What should we do when we receive a fund with a suppressed status?

When a fund has had a status of suppressed sent through, this investment should no longer be made available to the end users of the data. When the data issue has been resolved and the status is updated to active, we will resend a full historical refresh of data for this investment so that all changes made to the fund while is was suppressed will be reflected in client’s databases.

Large incremental files

Q: The file we received for the daily incremental file seems to larger than usual. Is there a reason for this?

At times when we perform pooling of funds, the size of the incremental file can be much larger than usual, especially if updating Record 4C – Asset Allocation. This process usually does not last for more than a few days at a time. However if this is materially affecting systems at your end, please send an email explaining your situation to: helpdesk.au@morningstar.com

Keywords: Large incremental files

Managed Funds Price Feed

Q: Do the prices in the data feed depend on the status of the fund?

Yes. We provide transaction entry and exit prices for all active funds that are open to new and existing investors. For closed funds (closed to new applications), only exit prices are provided in Morningstar's price feed. For closed funds (closed to all or closed to new investors), we only provide exit prices. In the new data feed (LDF version 2.5) we will be able send entry and exit prices for funds that are closed to new investors and we will continue to only send exit prices for funds that are closed to all investors. No prices are provided for funds that are suppressed or terminated.

Q: How do you determine the status of the fund i.e. active, closed, suppressed and terminated? Do you check with the Fund Managers, or refer to their website?

We do use websites and other public sources, but we always confirm with the fund manager before we make any of these changes on our database. We also encourage fund managers to contact us to tell us of these kinds of changes.

Q: Are the daily prices in the price feed soft or hard closed prices? Are the monthly prices soft or hard closed prices?

Morningstar captures transaction prices, so which prices the investors are transacting at. Most funds have moved to hard close transactional prices (IFSA standard from 2010).