Creating Custom Lenses (From Existing Lens)
You don't need admin permissions to build a lens. Inside any workspace tab, you can adjust the filters, charts, columns, and groups until the view shows what you need, then save that arrangement as a new lens and apply it to a fresh tab. This is the efficient path when you want several purpose-built lenses off one starting point — for example, one tab per commodity family, each filtered to its own set of HS6 codes.
The flow
Step 1: Start from a base tab. Open the tab you want to build from — a base lens, or a base value chains tab. This tab stays intact; you're using it as a starting point, not replacing it.
Step 2: Make your changes in that tab. Use Filters, Columns, Groups, and the … menu (Charts, Highlights) to shape the view. At this point the changes are yours alone — they're user-level adjustments to your session, not part of any lens definition.
Step 3: Save as New Lens — and check the box. Choose Save as New Lens, name the lens, and select the checkbox that carries your current filters into the lens. This step is what promotes your user-level filters into lens-level filters. If you skip it, the lens saves without your filters and other people opening the tab won't see them.
Step 4: Add a new tab. Select Add Tab in the tab bar and give it a name.
Step 5: Apply the new lens to the new tab. Pick your newly saved lens in the Apply Lens panel and select Apply. The tab loads with the lens's filters, charts, columns, and groups in place — for everyone with access to the workspace, not just you.
Confirm the filters carried over
Once the lens is applied, look at the filters bar. Lens-level filters appear there in a grey summary box, distinct from any filters you add on top during your session. If that box is missing or doesn't list the filters you expected, the checkbox in Step 3 wasn't selected — repeat the flow from the base tab and save again.
Why the flow works this way
Saving to a new lens and applying it to a new tab — rather than overwriting the tab you were working in — keeps the base tab reusable. You can return to it, filter it a different way, and save a second lens, then a third, all from the same starting point. Building five lenses off one base is the case this flow is designed for.
The trade-off is that changes made in a tab don't propagate to the tab's existing lens. A tab reflects the lens applied to it, so a saved lens takes effect only once you apply it.
Key terms
- Lens — a reusable saved configuration of filters, charts, columns, groups, highlights, and tables.
- User-level filter — a filter you apply inside a tab during your session. Visible only to you, and not saved to the lens unless you carry it over when saving.
- Lens-level filter — a filter stored in the lens definition. Applies for everyone, in every tab the lens is applied to.
- Base tab — the tab you build from, kept intact so you can derive more lenses from it.