Whether you've been using Lens for years or months, you've watched it evolve with new features and ideas. We're driven to make it easier to discover and document changes on the places that matter to you - a goal that has remained constant since the beginning. We’re excited to return to some of the core features of Lens, namely Notes and Reports, with some fresh new functionalities. Read on to see what's new in Lens.
We’re taking Lens reports to a whole new level this week. Next time you’re in Lens, you’ll notice a new Reports pane in the map view. From here, you can either create a new report or view saved reports.
Gone are the days of re-creating reports to make an update to the summary text, adjust zoom levels, or modify the order of notes. Now you can simply re-open your Lens report and pick up right where you left off. This is a great way to ensure that you don’t lose any of your work and allows you to incorporate feedback about reports without needing to start from scratch.
To save a report to Lens, first create a report then click the floppy disk icon at the top right when you’re viewing a report.
Once saved, you’ll be able to see and reopen any previously-created reports on the new Reports pane. Click the dropdown to view more detail, including who originally created the report and when it was first saved and last updated. Click the blue icon to reopen that report and continue editing where you left off.
Speaking of making your life easy, it’s also never been easier to stay organized with your notes. Introducing 🥁 note tags! Spice up your notes by adding a tag to a note to see relevant context at-a-glance. This is handy if your organization has specific categories for monitoring, such as structures, buffer areas, ecological changes, landowner follow-up, and more. Note tags you create will be available across your portfolio to keep your workflow consistent and organized.
You can add a new tag (or tags!) when you’re creating a new note, or by editing an existing note.
They can also help you organize and filter to view only notes of a certain kind. Click the filter button at the top to configure a specific date range or tags to filter by.
Once you’ve got your notes organized and pared down, we’ve got a shortcut to make a report that includes just the notes you’re seeing at that time.
You can now download the polygon associated with a note by clicking the three dots at the top right of a note. The polygon will export as a shapefile, which you can use in GIS or re-upload to Lens as a custom overlay. You can still download all note polygons for a property by navigating to the top of the notes pane and clicking the three dots.
Curious about how to use Lens to explore the history of a landscape? Check out a How-to piece here to learn about the array of tools at your fingertips in Lens.
A highlight of our retreat in Boston was a field trip with one of our fantastic conservation partners: The Trustees of Reservations. We had the pleasure of hiking a Trustees preserve and spending quality time with their staff. To learn more about their work and how they use Lens, check out our article here.
As we mentioned above, you can download note polygons and re-upload them to Lens as custom overlays. This is a handy way to create overlays on the fly without even needing GIS. And with high-resolution imagery, you can use the note polygon tool to delineate boundaries like burn areas, project boundaries, and more.
Check out the unique shape of Galesnjak, a 33-acre island off the Adriatic coast of Croatia. This month's feature release is sent to you, with love, from the Lens team! We hope you find our new features helpful, and we encourage you to use our Lens feedback box for submitting product ideas and love letters alike.
Happy Monitoring!
Miles & the Lens Team
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