Aside from the raw telemetry any HIFI data product will contain appropriate meta data describing the raw data and adding information not contained in the data themselves. The data descriptive meta data will describe e.g. the number of pixels in a spectrum, units along axes etc. Additional information will be items like instrument set up used, integration time, observed source, processing steps applied to the data.

Any set of HIFI data in the database is linked to other information on the observed object, the observer, the program etc. This information is not stored in the HIFI data proper, but can be found by navigating the Observation Context which the standard repository for a complete set of data associaated with an observation. When exporting HIFI data to e.g. FITS, some relevant information from these associations is also copied into the FITS file.