Hi @kim_frederiksen
Fitst what version of the ELK Stack are you on?
2nd Elasticsearch has an extensive REST (JSON) API endpoint so yes you can directly write JSON documents to elasticsearch if you like you are not required to use filebeat and / or logstash.
Here are the Document APIs to do that we can chat about that if that is really what you want to do.
3rd As you say you team has little experience with elasticsearch, there are some other really important concepts like mapping (think schema) and index templates etc . There is lots of free training etc on the site plus you are in the right place for help.
Now ... to be clear = XML data will need to be parsed to JSON to be more useful in elasticsearch but no worries there are several tools / methods to help with that,,, but XML in a JSON field is fine I suspect that is where you are ... but that is not super useful, probably not what you want.
It sounds like you sort of have your data ingesting... but I might suggest that unless there is a specific reason you don't need logstash
Filebeat -> Elasticsearch should just fine, while you are debugging I would take out logstash unless you absolutely need it.
So know tell us about your data that is how we are going to be able to help.
As always we say if you can show us some of the input data and what you are seeing in kibana (in text not screen shot) that is of most help
So show us source and results. ?
Can you show us a sample of what ends up in the message
field
Is your XML single line / condensed or "Expanded / multi-line / Pretty"?
We typically ask to see your configurations files for filebeat as well.
If you are saying that end up with still xml in the message
field perhaps take a look at this
Lets us know how we can help... the more your share the better we can help