# Viewing data not collected through logstash but rather independently shipped into elastic

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/viewing-data-not-collected-through-logstash-but-rather-independently-shipped-into-elastic/53936>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [June 25, 2016, 9:44am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/viewing-data-not-collected-through-logstash-but-rather-independently-shipped-into-elastic/53936 "2016-06-25T09:44:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![matanster](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/matanster/32/32063_2.png) [@matanster](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/matanster)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 9:44am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/viewing-data-not-collected-through-logstash-but-rather-independently-shipped-into-elastic/53936/1 "2016-06-25T09:44:20Z")

</div>

Hi,

I am writing log-like data directly into elasticsearch, bypassing some of the conventional logging infrastructure, logstash included. This log-like data is being written entirely semantically as json, not as human readable text messages to be parsed, especially so for visualization and analytics sake.

How should I structure my json data messages such that they are available to Kibana and to the Kibana end-user, as equally as conventional log data ingested by logstash??

are there some official configuration knobs determining which data Kibana makes available from elastic?  
Not sure I could locate such ones in [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/kibana-server-properties.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/kibana-server-properties.html)

Many Thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 9:50pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/viewing-data-not-collected-through-logstash-but-rather-independently-shipped-into-elastic/53936/2 "2016-06-25T21:50:20Z")

</div>

You can view any sort of data in KB, irrespective of it being time based - logs/metrics etc. Just add in a new index pattern and you should be good to go.

Are you having problems?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![matanster](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/matanster/32/32063_2.png) [@matanster](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/matanster)\
**Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/viewing-data-not-collected-through-logstash-but-rather-independently-shipped-into-elastic/53936/3 "2016-08-14T01:21:12Z")

</div>

Coming back to this few weeks old thread, I do have some questions standing in my way. Namely:  
Querying my index in the HQ plugin, I see that all of these columns displayed there for it, are empty:

FieldFormatMap   
TimeFieldName   
IntervalName   
Fields   
Title  
BuildNum

Whereas the column "Item" has the actual items.  
My items are JSON objects containing a time field, a field I could call a title, and a field containing my application's build number that pushed the item into elastic.

What specific benefits am I missing by not having these fields within my items "mapped" to the aforementioned columns?

Many thanks,  
Matan

---

<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:** [July 6, 2017, 1:41pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/viewing-data-not-collected-through-logstash-but-rather-independently-shipped-into-elastic/53936/4 "2017-07-06T13:41:10Z")

</div>