---
title: Parse data using an ingest pipeline
description: When you use Elasticsearch for output, you can configure Heartbeat to use an ingest pipeline to pre-process documents before the actual indexing takes...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/beats/heartbeat/configuring-ingest-node
products:
  - Beats
  - Heartbeat
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Parse data using an ingest pipeline
When you use Elasticsearch for output, you can configure Heartbeat to use an [ingest pipeline](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/manage-data/ingest/transform-enrich/ingest-pipelines) to pre-process documents before the actual indexing takes place in Elasticsearch. An ingest pipeline is a convenient processing option when you want to do some extra processing on your data, but you do not require the full power of Logstash. For example, you can create an ingest pipeline in Elasticsearch that consists of one processor that removes a field in a document followed by another processor that renames a field.
After defining the pipeline in Elasticsearch, you simply configure Heartbeat to use the pipeline. To configure Heartbeat, you specify the pipeline ID in the `parameters` option under `elasticsearch` in the `heartbeat.yml` file:
```yaml
output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["localhost:9200"]
  pipeline: my_pipeline_id
```

For example, let’s say that you’ve defined the following pipeline in a file named `pipeline.json`:
```json
{
    "description": "Test pipeline",
    "processors": [
        {
            "lowercase": {
                "field": "agent.name"
            }
        }
    ]
}
```

To add the pipeline in Elasticsearch, you would run:
```shell
curl -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -XPUT 'http://localhost:9200/_ingest/pipeline/test-pipeline' -d@pipeline.json
```

Then in the `heartbeat.yml` file, you would specify:
```yaml
output.elasticsearch:
  hosts: ["localhost:9200"]
  pipeline: "test-pipeline"
```

When you run Heartbeat, the value of `agent.name` is converted to lowercase before indexing.
For more information about defining a pre-processing pipeline, see the [ingest pipeline](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/manage-data/ingest/transform-enrich/ingest-pipelines) documentation.