Publishing research in Thomson Reuters, part 2: availability

Every time you publish a document, you need to decide who it is going to be available to. Listing all entitled users on every document does not scale well, so instead you need to specify entitlement group.

All documents in the same entitlement group share some properties:

• List of entitled readers
• Embargo settings 
• Price algorithm

The common set up involves having one subscription group, where the users you select can access the document free of charge, and one pay-per-view group, where the entitled users need to purchase the document (in whole or in part) before viewing.

If you want to release your documents to different user groups at different points in time, you can set up an embargo. This way the group you publish to will receive the document immediately, and embargoed group will receive the document automatically after it reaches a certain age.

Price algorithm allows you to decide how much you want to charge for documents; it is possible to tweak price per page (applies to PDF documents only) and price per document. The price can be constant, or it can be calculated based on certain factors like document age or number of pages. Note, some distribution channels require predefined price algorithms, so using custom prices will limit your ability to reach certain audiences.

In HDM you specify the document group using the following syntax:
Distribution.GroupID[0] = 1
In this example 0 is the sequential number of user group, 1 is the group ID.

In RIXML 2.4 you would use the following:

<Research>
  <Product>
    <Context>
      <ProductDetails>
        <EntitlementGroup>
          <Entitlement>
            <AudienceTypeEntitlement audienceType="PublisherDefined" entitlementContext="ThomsonReuters">1</AudienceTypeEntitlement>
In this example 1 is the group ID. Multiple entitlement groups can be specified by adding multiple AudienceTypeEntitlement tags.

Publishing research in Thomson Reuters

So, you decided to publish your financial research documents on Thomson Reuters systems. One of the first choices you have to make is - how are you going to publish your documents?

There is a number of options here, each has its advantages and disadvantages.

• Publish document + description file

This option works best if you already manage your documents using a computer system. Once you upload a RIXML or HDM description file to Thomson Reuters servers, the document becomes available almost immediately.

• Publish document + description using web tool (TRRC)

If you don't store the document description anywhere, you can create one manually in the web tool. This option is fairly time-consuming, but gives you full control over the information you submit, and shields you from potential problems with the description file.

• Publish document only

This option is the easiest to use. Thomson Reuters will extract the document description from your document. The document will not be immediately available, and you have no control over the document description. Also, this option is subject to different terms and conditions.

• Publish using third party tools

Some companies offer to publish your documents on your behalf. The quality of their submissions varies on a case-by-case basis. Your mileage may vary.