All Herschel instrument data processing pipelines are designed to provide processing up to the point of instrument artifact removal (level-1). Immediately available as products from the Herschel pipelines for users are level-0 (raw) and level-1 data (processed). All data production and handling is done within the Herschel Common Science System (HCSS) environment. Further processing of data is possible via the Data Processing component of the HCSS or via export to other software systems by the user.

Level-0 data: Raw telemetry data as measured by the instrument, minimally manipulated and put into the mission data base/archive, often sorted and corrected for small errors. Typically, readings are in binary units versus detector pixel number.

Level-1 data: Detector readouts calibrated and converted to physical units, as much as possible instrument and observatory independent. In principle level-1 data processing can be done without human intervention. For HIFI these are individual spectral scans with detector readings as fluxes versus wavelength. Telescope pointings are given in RA and DEC; the conversion from satellite pointing data to RA and DEC is provided by ESA.

It should be noted that the user can run all the HIFI data pipelines interactively or in batch mode from his/her own local computer system using the HCSS. This means that data reprocessing can be done by the astronomer rather than needing to be requested from the Herschel Science Centre.