WRDS provides a variety of ways to access the available data.

Web Interface

Data can be retrieved directly from the WRDS website at:

http://wrds.wharton.upenn.edu 

To access data, log into the website using your WRDS username and password. (If you need an account, click here) You will be taken to ASU's WRDS page. The datasets currently purchased by ASU are listed with links to the pages for each dataset. Click on the link for the dataset that you are interested. A page with a general description of the dataset will appear. On the upper left hand side of the page will be links to various sections of each data. In addition, this page will contain links to manual and documentation.

For example, to download Compustat Industrial data, click on "Compustat" on the main page. On the following page, click on "Industrial" on the upper left hand side of the page (it will be the third item listed). From here, you will be able to select what companies, date range, variables, and the type of output file you want. Once you have selected the desired options, click "Submit Request". The request will run and will return a page with a link to download the resulting dataset. If the dataset will be large, you can file in your email address and you will be sent an email when your request is finished with a link to the data.  

Unix account

WRDS data can also be accessed through an Unix account provided on the WRDS servers. When a user requests an account, an account on the WRDS Unix servers is also created. The Unix account can accessed through a telnet client at:

wrds.wharton.upenn.edu

Users who need a telnet client can download the SSH Client provided by Central IT at:

http://www.asu.edu/it/fyi/comm/sw/serveraccess/ssh.html

Each Unix account is provided with 25MB of space. SAS is available from within the account and can be used to access and analyze the various datasets available. The SAS datasets are located on the server in the "/wrds/<dataset name>/sasdata" directory. For example, the following libname statement would be used for the Compustat data:

libname cstat '/wrds/compustat/sasdata';

The following table lists the datasets available to ASU and their location on the WRDS Unix server:

The WRDS Unix server also supports FTP which allows users to transfer files to and from their Unix accounts.