# Unique count on field, not on field.keyword **URL:** \ **Category:** Kibana\ **Created:** [September 20, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unique-count-on-field-not-on-field-keyword/200417 "2019-09-20T12:40:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dani\_Ruse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dani_ruse/32/54602_2.png) [@Dani\_Ruse](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Dani_Ruse)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unique-count-on-field-not-on-field-keyword/200417/1 "2019-09-20T12:40:41Z")
Hello! I am new to Kibana and I need to make a visualization showing the number of unique logs (with respect to the message). The logs retrieved by my search/query contain a field called "message", all of them having the following structure: "Process started for person: 1234", where 1234 represents the unique ID of the person. The process can be started several times for the same person, so I need to count the unique number of persons for which the process started. I tried to use an unique count aggregation, but I am only allowed by Kibana to choose the field "message.keyword" , but I need to uniquely count the entire message (or just the ending). I tried to create a scripted field in order to split the message field, but I keep getting compiler errors and I honestly don't know where to display them (I'm just told by Kibana "Discover: Compile error"). How would you solve this? Thanks in advance and sorry if the answer is obvious, but, as I've said, I'm a beginner. ---
**Author:** ![nickpeihl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/nickpeihl/32/112622_2.png) [@nickpeihl](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/nickpeihl)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unique-count-on-field-not-on-field-keyword/200417/2 "2019-09-20T17:30:27Z")
Only fields of type `keyword` can be used for unique count aggregations. This is because the entire field value is indexed as a single "keyword". You can not do a unique count on the `message` field because each token (word) of the message field is indexed separately. I am fairly certain the unique count on the `message.keyword` field will return the results you want. ---
**Author:** ![Dani\_Ruse](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dani_ruse/32/54602_2.png) [@Dani\_Ruse](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Dani_Ruse)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2019, 1:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unique-count-on-field-not-on-field-keyword/200417/3 "2019-09-23T13:43:13Z")
Thanks! You were right, message.keyword worked just fine, but the big difference between the total and the unique number appeared to big to be real. I checked manually and message.keyword seems to be working. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2019, 1:43pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/unique-count-on-field-not-on-field-keyword/200417/4 "2019-10-21T13:43:13Z")
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