Datastream

Datastream is a large financial statistical database owned by Thomson Reuters. Wharton has a subscription for two logins to Datastream, which you can access in two ways:

  • The Lippincott Library’s Datastream terminal
  • Remote terminal access via datastream.wharton.upenn.edu

Library Terminal Access

To use the Datastream terminal in the library, please visit the Library, or contact a librarian for assistance or more information: http://www.library.upenn.edu/lippincott/

Remote Terminal Access

Authorization

Remote Terminal Access is available for all current Wharton faculty & PhD students. For authorization to us the Remote Terminal, please contact Research Computing at research-computing@wharton.upenn.edu. Please include your name, email address, and department when requesting access.

Connecting to the Remote Terminal Server

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Access from networks not on Penn’s campus requires an active VPN connection. Please see our VPN page for details on installation and operation of the client.

Since this is a remote access terminal, only one user is able to log in at a time. Please be mindful of your usage, and log out as soon as you are done with your work.

Windows Client

  1. Open Remote Desktop Client (Start > Run > mstsc > OK).
  2. Type datastream.wharton.upenn.edu into the Computer box 3 (Click Connect).
  3. Log in using your Wharton username and password.
  4. To access the Datastream AFO plugin in Excel (the most popular option), simply launch MS Excel. The AFO plugin will be in the Office ribbon at the top.
  5. To use the other Datastream interface, launch Datastream Advance 5.1 by double-clicking the “Datastream 5.1” icon.
  6. Once you are done, be sure to log off completely by going to Start > Log Off. Failing to do this could result in preventing other people from logging in, as simply disconnecting from your session by clicking the “x” leaves you logged in.  Only one person can log in at a time.

MacOS Client

  1. If not already installed, install Microsoft Remote Desktop for MacOS:
    1. Go > Applications > App Store
    2. Search for Microsoft Remote Desktop and ‘Get’ then ‘Install App’
  2. Once installed, Go > Applications > Microsoft Remote Desktop
  3. If you don’t already have a ‘My Desktops’ desktop set up:
    1. + New
    2. Connection Name: whatever you like, I use ‘DataStream’
    3. PC Name: datastream.wharton.upenn.edu
    4. User name: WHARTON\username
    5. Password: Wharton Password
    6. Set up Redirection (to put code and get results)
      1. Choose the ‘Redirection’ tab
      2. Check ‘Enable folder redirection’
      3. Click ‘+’
      4. Name of your choice (I did ‘MyMac’)
      5. Pick (browse) a folder on your Mac
    7. Other options: your choice, but the defaults tend to work pretty well
    8. Close (red X) the setup
  4. Double-click the ‘DataStream’ desktop from My Desktops
  5. It will ask to ‘Verify Certificate’ … choose ‘Always trust’ checkbox and ‘Continue’, save ‘Certificate Trust Settings’

Getting Your Data

Probably the easiest way to ‘get’ the data that you extract from Datastream is to enable your Remote Desktop Client to access ‘Local devices and resources’ when you connect to datastream.wharton.upenn.edu. To do that:

  1. When you open the Remote Desktop Client, before connecting choose the ‘Local Resources’ tab, and then click on the ‘More’ button in the ‘Local devices and resorces’ section of the tab:Screenshot 2017-01-06 08.35.13
  2. Then expand the ‘Drives’ section by clicking the ‘+’ to the left of the checkbox, and check ‘Local Disk (C:)’ or any other local drive that you prefer, then click OK:Screenshot 2017-01-06 08.34.02
  3. Now when you connect you will be able to save your files to ‘C on COMPUTERNAME’, where ‘COMPUTERNAME’ is the name of your local computer:Screenshot 2017-01-06 08.41.29

Other important notes:

  • If you try to log in to datastream.wharton.upenn.edu and get a message that the maximum number of users is logged in, it means that someone is either using it, or has forgotten to log out. In this case, we would ask that you please wait and try again later, or send a note to datastream-users@wharton.upenn.edu to coordinate usage – either to remind someone to log off, or to find out when the system will be free.
  • We have seen reports from users that downloading extremely large datasets in a large batch can cause the program to freeze or crash. If you experience this, breaking the request up into smaller batches seems to remedy the problem.
  • To get the data you downloaded off of the Datastream server, you can either map a network drive and copy it there, or use the installed FTP/sftp client FileZilla to transfer it to another server.
  • Please remember to log off (not just ‘Disconnect’ by closing the window!!) when you are not using the system. System time limits:
    • Active Use Time Limit: 12 hours
    • Idle but Connected Time Limit: 2 hours
    • Disconnected (session still open) Time Limit: 10 minutes

Datastream Documentation: