Prowessdx
Prowess Data eXtraction Interface for Academia
Serial Number: 3
February 2015
http://prowessdx.cmie.com
Tips
It is cheaper to make selections
of all required Indicators from
all relevant Tables in one
Specification than in multiple
Specifications.
After executing a download
request do remember to refresh
the page periodically to see new
Status of download request.
CMIE
Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Ltd.
www.cmie.com
Largest Database of Financial Performance of Indian Companies
Vintages are forever
In Prowessdx, a Vintage is a snapshot of the entire Prowess database as
of a point in time. These points in time are end of March, September
and December.
A Vintage is never edited or updated in any manner. A Vintage promises
to the user that it will always be available and its content will never
change from its original release. This promise ensures that users can
replicate their work (in terms of the data extracted from Prowess) at all
times in the future. We do not know what exactly is “always”, what is
“never” and what is “all times in the future”. The idea is that we have
no intention of deleting any of these Vintages and we have every
intention of keeping them the way they were when we first released
them.
The first Vintage was created in December 2013, when the service was
launched. This is still available in the Prowess dx service as it was when
it was first generated. And, so is every other Vintage that was released
since then.
The biggest justification for creating these Vintages is the promise of
ensuring replication of the results of a data extraction instance.
Research results can be quite sensitive to the data used. And, an ever-
changing database can create avoidable complications in research. Even
if the basic results of the research remain robust with updated
databases, the possible changes in results because of a revision in the
underlying database may raise avoidable doubts about the robustness of
the work. Vintages remove all doubts that arise because of a changing
database.
Why March, September and December?
Vintages are created in March, September and December. This schedule
reflects the flow of new Annual Reports of Indian companies. Over 95
per cent of Indian companies end their accounting period in March.
Annual Reports of these companies become available between June and
September.
Most listed companies (about 21 per cent of the companies in the
Prowess database) release their Annual Report between June and
August. Some unlisted companies also start providing their Annual
Reports in August and September. This justifies a Vintage as of end of
September.
Prowessdx Largest Database of Financial Performance of Indian Companies
Prowess Data eXtraction Interface for Academia

Unlisted companies with their accounting years ending in March are

required to file the Annual Reports with the Ministry of Corporate
Affairs by the end of October. This justifies a Vintage as of December.

Data and knowledge for your research on India

The rush of Annual Reports is very high in November and there is a
significant spill-over in their inclusion in Prowess into the early months
of the following year. So, this justifies a Vintage in March. Further, new
Annual Reports of some companies that have their year ending in
December (mostly multinationals) also get included in the March
Vintage.

Specifications are to edit and re-use

Every download request made by a user leads to the creation of a
unique specifications file. This specifications file contains details
regarding the Vintage used, the set of companies selected, the indicators
selected, the time-span for each indicator, and the formats chosen for
the download.
CMIE stores these specifications for each user who creates it. They also
get created automatically if you download data using these.
Specifications files can be re-loaded and edited to download a slightly
different data set. We understand that data extraction can be an iterative
process and this facility to re-load an earlier file and make changes to
the same is a great convenience. Each time a user edits an earlier file
and saves or downloads, a new specifications file is created. The old
one remains unchanged - forever.

Specifications are to share

Co-authors or colleagues need not exchange large data files between
themselves. They may merely exchange specifications files created by
Check out in the Menu Bar Prowessdx. The co-authors (colleagues) may then upload these
Prowessdx Data Dictionary specifications files to see the precise specifications given by their
colleagues, possibly make modifications to these and download data.
Masters Journal editors, research paper referees, thesis or project supervisors
If you have made a few can demand specifications files from authors to cross-check the data
downloads, then do see used for the research. Co-authors, colleagues, referees and others who
Specifications & Requests would like to check the data by downloading it need to have a license to
access Prowessdx.

CMIE
Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Ltd.
www.cmie.com