# Kibana support array of JSON object

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-support-array-of-json-object/127866>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [April 12, 2018, 7:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-support-array-of-json-object/127866 "2018-04-12T19:54:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DravenJohnson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@DravenJohnson](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DravenJohnson)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2018, 7:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-support-array-of-json-object/127866/1 "2018-04-12T19:54:17Z")

</div>

We have a data that looks like this:

```auto
{
  "data1": "something",
  "data2":"something",
  "students": [{
     "name": "peter",
     "age": 9,
     "school": "school1"
    },
    {
      "name": "kevel",
      "age": 4,
      "school": "school2"
    }
  ]
}

```

An array of JSON object.

Based on the elasticsearch document, the [`nested` object](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/5.4/nested.html) seems the only option we can use. However, looks like Kibana does not support that well, throwing a warning says "array of object is not well supported". We can't use query like `students.age: 9` to get certain records.

Is there any other way to achieve the goal?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thomasneirynck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thomasneirynck/32/23313_2.png) [@thomasneirynck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thomasneirynck)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-support-array-of-json-object/127866/2 "2018-04-13T18:18:14Z")

</div>

hi @DravenJohnson, I think you're running into a limitation of Kibana, [https://github.com/elastic/kibana/issues/1084](https://github.com/elastic/kibana/issues/1084), it's a popular feature request.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DravenJohnson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@DravenJohnson](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DravenJohnson)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2018, 4:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-support-array-of-json-object/127866/3 "2018-04-17T16:50:42Z")

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Hi Thomas,

Thank you for the reply.

So there is no plan to support it? Do we have other option for this kind of data?

We need to be able to search / aggregate the field.

Thanks  
Draven

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thomasneirynck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/thomasneirynck/32/23313_2.png) [@thomasneirynck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/thomasneirynck)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2018, 5:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-support-array-of-json-object/127866/4 "2018-04-17T17:26:43Z")

</div>

There are plans to support it, but it hasn't been scheduled yet.

If you're just interested in building visualizations, you may be able to use the Vega-visualization ([https://www.elastic.co/blog/custom-vega-visualizations-in-kibana](https://www.elastic.co/blog/custom-vega-visualizations-in-kibana)). It allows you to put in a raw ES-query, rather than using the Kibana-UX for formulate your query. So you could query an index directly, working around the current Kibana limitation.

I actually haven't tested this, so YMMV, but it may be worth looking into.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DravenJohnson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@DravenJohnson](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DravenJohnson)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-support-array-of-json-object/127866/5 "2018-04-17T19:06:35Z")

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Thanks Thomas

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/kibana-support-array-of-json-object/127866/6 "2018-05-15T19:06:44Z")

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