The complete financial data platform has multiple layers of integration for a streamlined workflow and enriched user experience. Discover how Eikon and the Elektron Data Platform are built for your success.
- The streamlined workflow of a financial data platform (such as Eikon) is achieved through multiple layers of integration.
- Layers start at basic visibility, move into functionality, and finally, full data integration for a more complete picture.
- Refinitiv’s platforms enable you to choose the level of integration you need for success, and we are constantly evolving to serve you better.
A financial data platform brings numerous benefits to end users, the most significant being a more streamlined workflow.
This is achieved through multiple levels of integration: The deeper the integration, the better the workflow.
A simple analogy is that of mobile phone apps.
The most engaging ones use the phone’s functionality such as notifications or the camera, for example, and combine it with user data — contacts or preferences — to provide a more content specific user experience.
Entirely standalone apps can still be useful, but mostly for highly discreet tasks.
Financial data platforms such as Eikon provide successive layers of integration that enrich the user’s experience. This starts with simple discoverability and ends with deep data integration.
Visibility and basic features
One of the most basic functions of a platform is to help users find relevant solutions.
In Eikon, this is done via a listing in the library, including app details such as features, pricing (if any) and basic terms.
Apps can also be highlighted via search, categorization, or a recommendation engine that makes helpful suggestions based on the user’s profile.
To achieve a more seamless experience, users need to be able to easily access apps and assemble them in a workflow.
Eikon allows third-party apps to be included in workspaces — a combination of a number of apps on the screen all accessed via Single Sign On.
Apps in Eikon also have a consistent look and feel to help users visually interact with them.
Functional integration
The next level of integration is at the functional level by helping apps interact with each other and enriching them with basic customer information and preferences.
Users do not want to enter the same data multiple times into apps.
Context passing allows Eikon apps to listen to and transmit relevant details to each other in order to eliminate the need for duplicate data entry.
For instance, if a user is researching stocks using news monitoring, company overview, charting and short interest analytics apps, all four can be linked so that the user only needs to enter a stock symbol once.
All apps will change to display relevant information, saving time and avoiding (potentially costly) errors.
Functional integration also includes bringing in the user’s basic data and preferences.
For example, Eikon users who maintain watch lists or portfolios can give apps — including third-party apps — access to them to drive more relevant analysis.
Preferences and settings for such things as language, look and feel, and trading venues also carry over.
Data integration
Data is the lifeblood of a financial workflow, and true insight comes from connecting the dots within that data.
That means creating a cohesive picture from many data sources — and developing a point of view based on it.
Critical to this is having access to a variety of data sources which can be dynamically combined and analyzed.
Data integration, the deepest level of integration, is enabled by financial data platforms such as Elektron Data Platform for machine use and Eikon for human use.
All apps on a platform should be able to take advantage of a user’s permissioned data, regardless of whether they are native or built by a third party.
Our platforms — Eikon and Elektron — combine, standardize and provide access to data from thousands of sources, and all apps in Eikon can seamlessly consume that data.
Beyond what’s already available in Eikon, customers have their own data and new data sources are continually created and aggregated by a myriad of financial data providers.
In Eikon, third party apps can display that data beside other Eikon data. But the real value comes from deeper integration.
The “data contribution” process involves the merging of data models and the creation of new identifiers and metadata.
Once done, the newly integrated data can flow through all apps in Eikon and can be co-mingled with other data to provide a more complete picture.
An example of this is combining public and proprietary pricing data — contributed and standardized on our platforms — to create a more accurate forward pricing curve.
A financial data platform for you
A financial data platform allows disparate providers of data and capabilities to create solutions for users who all have their own unique workflows and needs.
The different layers of integration provide more value to users the deeper you go.
Our platforms and contribution mechanisms enable customers and partners to choose the level of integration that they want.
We are evolving the integration options and services as we continue to invest in our financial data platforms.
