[[filtering-and-enhancing-data]]
[role="xpack"]
== Filter and enhance data with processors

++++
<titleabbrev>Processors</titleabbrev>
++++

Your use case might require only a subset of the data exported by {beatname_uc},
or you might need to enhance the exported data (for example, by adding
metadata). {beatname_uc} provides a couple of options for filtering and
enhancing exported data.

You can specify a <<{beatname_lc}-filter_pattern,`filter_pattern`>> to match the
data you want to send. This approach may reduce execution costs because the
function running {beatname_uc} only executes if there is data that matches the
pattern.

Another approach (the one described here) is to define processors.


[float]
[[using-processors]]
=== Processors

include::{libbeat-dir}/processors.asciidoc[]

:processor-scope: function
include::{libbeat-dir}/processors-using.asciidoc[]
:processor-scope!:
