The Open:FactSet Marketplace is FactSet's marketplace for data, applications and workflow solutions. This guide sets out, from FactSet's own documents, how a purchase works for a buyer, what FactSet says about connecting outside data to its identifiers, and how to measure that mapping on a company dataset you load yourself. FactSet's brochures carry a 2022 copyright line and its article dates from 2021, so each source is dated in the text, and each current term is worth confirming with FactSet. Every statement about FactSet was checked against the pages linked here on 4 October 2026.
Fokals is delivered direct, by REST API and as bulk files in JSON, JSON Lines or CSV, which you load with your own tools, and the last two sections show how to map it to the identifiers you hold.
What FactSet says the marketplace is
FactSet's brochure for marketplace partners, copyright 2022, describes the Open:FactSet Marketplace as an open marketplace for data whose main audience is the investment community. It says financial and corporate institutions use it to find and buy data, applications and workflow tools in one place, and that it rests on four decades of FactSet's work integrating financial data.
FactSet now publishes a catalogue at factset.com/marketplace/catalog, and the older open.factset.com address redirects there. The catalogue also lists a product named Open: FactSet Marketplace API. The brochure lists the themes FactSet says it prioritises when it selects partners, and five of them matter to a buyer of company data.
| Theme in FactSet's brochure | Subcategories it names |
|---|---|
| Human Capital | Compensation, people, job listings, workforce and individual characteristics, insider transactions |
| Business Relationships | Supply chain, shipping, contracts, loans, competitors, corporate activism, ownership |
| Company Reported Data | Fundamentals, estimates, corporate actions, events, earnings call transcripts, insider transactions |
| Consumer Trends | Retail, point-of-sale, website traffic, footfall, web and mobile apps, surveys |
| Data Management | Industry and sector, classifications, Concordance Service, corporate hierarchy |
Job listings sit under Human Capital, so a buyer looking for hiring data in this marketplace would start there. The brochure says partner selection follows client demand, industry trends and fit with these themes, so the table shows what FactSet prioritises and not a catalogue of what is on sale.
A product page is built with the partner. The brochure says FactSet helps each partner build provider and product pages, which can hold the partner's marketing material, white papers, case studies and sample data. Read a page as the partner's description of its data, and ask for the data dictionary and a sample for the companies you track before you rely on it.
How a purchase works
A partner on FactSet's standard agreement receives a listing and can draw on FactSet's sales, marketing and administrative teams. The brochure says FactSet handles all contracting and billing, which gives a client one record of the sales process from start to finish, and that partners keep control of product and package pricing. When a partner applies, the brochure adds, FactSet examines the data first and runs a set of integrity checks.
Delivery is where the roles change hands. After FactSet has produced a lead and the partner has taken it up, the brochure says, the partner is responsible for delivering the data, through vendor-managed options that FactSet says it screens for. A purchase therefore splits in two: you contract and are billed through FactSet, and you receive the feed from the data partner. FactSet's Data Solutions brochure, also from 2022, describes FactSet's own delivery separately: normalised data through major cloud providers, FactSet-hosted environments, APIs, web components and direct delivery of feeds. For each product, ask who delivers it, by which route and who answers when a file is late.
Entity mapping, the trait to understand
The Data Solutions brochure describes a hub-and-spoke data model in which permanent security identifiers connect to entity identifiers, with an entity and security master at the centre of a concordance of FactSet, market, regulatory, client and third-party identifiers. It adds a Concordance Service that ties a client's own records to FactSet identifiers, with links that run through CUSIPs, SEDOLs, ISINs and LEIs. FactSet's article of 6 July 2021 describes an identifier waterfall built around an Entity ID, which aligns proprietary and third-party reference data, and says FactSet applies its symbology and concordance process on a client's behalf to reduce the burden of data management.
The partner brochure draws a line that matters to a buyer. A standard agreement gives a partner a listing. An enhanced agreement, which the brochure describes as available for highly successful and mutually beneficial partnerships, links the partner's datasets into the hub-and-spoke model so that relationships between different identifiers show up. So the question to put for every product is whether it is connected to FactSet's entity and symbology masters or arrives on the partner's own identifiers. The answer decides how much mapping you do yourself, and it is the difference between a join you receive and a join you build.
Mapping a Fokals dataset to the identifiers you hold
Fokals data arrives with its own identifiers, so the mapping is a join you run. A security master that holds a FactSet identifier beside an ISIN or LEI can carry it across, since FactSet's brochure says its linkages run through those identifiers. The table to map from is the listed securities table, listed_securities: one row per equity listing, keyed by figi, with share_class_figi, ticker, mic, isin, lei, status and the company_id of the company it belongs to. The query below counts, by country, how many securities in your master are found in it and how many are tied to a company. It first reduces the table to one row per ISIN, because one security can have several listings.
-- security_master is your own table: one row per security, with its isin and country.
with listed as (
select
isin,
max(case when company_id is not null then 1 else 0 end) as has_company
from listed_securities
where isin is not null
group by isin
)
select
m.country,
count(*) as securities,
count(l.isin) as found_in_listed,
coalesce(sum(l.has_company), 0) as with_company
from security_master m
left join listed l
on l.isin = m.isin
group by m.country
order by securities desc;The two counts answer two questions. The securities found in listed_securities show how much of your master the listed-company index reaches by ISIN, and a security that is not found points to a key to check, such as a missing or invalid ISIN. The securities that are found and carry a company_id are the ones you can join to company data. Run both counts by country on your own master: that is the coverage figure to take into a vendor decision. The use case on mapping alternative data to a security master goes through the join order, and the guide to joinable identifiers and the comparison of ISIN, LEI and FIGI cover what each identifier identifies.
Questions about mapping belong in every vendor conversation, FactSet's partners included. The table gives the questions and the Fokals answers, which are all in the data dictionary and the methodology.
| Question to ask a vendor | The Fokals answer |
|---|---|
| At what level is a row: security, issuer or group? | Every company row carries one stable company ID; a listed company carries the identifiers of its listing, and a brand or subsidiary those of its listed parent |
| Which identifiers does a row carry, and when are they empty? | Ticker, MIC, ISIN, LEI and share-class FIGI for a listed company; an ISIN or LEI is stored only when its check digit is valid |
| How was a listing tied to a company? | By identifier, ticker and name; each listing records how it was matched |
| How does a listing change over time? | Each listing carries a status, so a delisted listing stays in the table |
| How do I measure the match on the companies I track? | Sample data for the companies you track is sent on request, with the data dictionary and methodology |
Because a brand carries its parent's identifiers, one ISIN can sit on several company IDs. A corporate hierarchy in an entity master and a Fokals brand row both describe a group, and you choose the level at which you compare before you count anything.
What each is built for
FactSet's brochures list financial statements, estimates, market data, ownership, supply chain relationships and an entity master to which other vendors' data is mapped among their themes. Fokals is built for company-level evidence: the hiring dataset and the other Fokals datasets cover the roles a company advertises, the technologies its website runs, what it announces and files, and weekly intent scores built from those signals, each score carrying the dated signals behind it. Every observation is dated and written once, so a join to FactSet content supports monitoring and point-in-time tests. The guide to the S&P Global Marketplace describes another discovery platform in the same terms.
Sample data for the companies you track is sent on request, with the data dictionary and methodology, and is the quickest way to measure your own match.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Open:FactSet Marketplace?
FactSet's brochure for marketplace partners, copyright 2022, describes it as an open marketplace for data whose main audience is the investment community. Financial and corporate institutions use it to find and buy data, applications and workflow tools in one place. FactSet's catalogue now sits at factset.com/marketplace/catalog, and the older open.factset.com address redirects there.
Who contracts and delivers when I buy through the Open:FactSet Marketplace?
The partner brochure says FactSet handles contracting and billing, so a client deals with FactSet through the sales process, and that once FactSet has produced a lead and the partner has taken it up, the partner is responsible for delivering the data. The brochure dates from 2022, so ask FactSet whether the arrangement still holds for the product you want.
Is the Open:FactSet Marketplace the same as the FactSet Marketplace?
FactSet's brochures call it the Open:FactSet Marketplace. Its catalogue is now at factset.com/marketplace/catalog, where the old open.factset.com address redirects, and the catalogue lists a product named Open: FactSet Marketplace API. FactSet's current pages are the place to confirm which name it uses today.
How does FactSet map third-party data to its identifiers?
FactSet's documents describe a hub-and-spoke data model in which security identifiers connect to entity identifiers, a Concordance Service that ties a client's records to FactSet identifiers, and links through CUSIPs, SEDOLs, ISINs and LEIs. The partner brochure says a partner's datasets are linked into the model under an enhanced agreement, so ask for each product whether it is.
How is Fokals data delivered to a team that works with FactSet identifiers?
Fokals is delivered direct, by REST API and as bulk files, and licensed by written agreement. A listed company carries its ticker, MIC, ISIN, LEI and share-class FIGI in Fokals tables, so you load the data and join it to your security master on the identifier you share. The entity resolution entry explains the problem in general terms.
How do I check that a vendor's company data maps to the companies I track?
Join a sample to your security master on the most specific identifier you share, then count three things: the securities in your master, the securities found in the vendor's index and the securities tied to a company with data. The first gap points to keys or scope in your master and the second to coverage. Run the count by country before you rely on any total.
The queries and code on this page are examples to adapt. Test them in your own environment before you rely on them.
What this page says about the products it names was checked against their public documentation on 4 October 2026. Product and company names are trademarks of their owners. Fokals is not affiliated with them or endorsed by them.