CRMA Academy

Intro to Lenses & Explorations

A lens is a saved exploration of a single dataset — the place you actually ask questions of your data in CRM Analytics. Learn what Explorer mode is, how apps and sharing frame it, and what this section covers.

Intro to Lenses & Explorations

You built a dataset. It's sitting in Analytics Studio, compressed and indexed and ready. Now what?

Now you explore it. In CRM Analytics (Tableau CRM / Einstein Analytics), the tool you use to interrogate a single dataset is a lens — and the workspace it opens in is called Explorer mode. It is the fastest feedback loop on the platform: click a field, get a chart, change your mind, click again. No saving, no building, no configuration. Just questions and answers.

So what actually is a lens?

A lens is one query against one dataset, plus the visualization of its result. That's it. When you open a dataset from Analytics Studio, you are automatically in a lens — an unsaved one, showing you the most boring possible query: count of rows, all of them, as a single number.

Everything you do from there is refining that query. Swap the measure. Group by a dimension. Add a filter. Sort it. Limit it to the top ten. Each click rewrites the underlying SAQL query and re-runs it against the dataset.

One dataset

A lens explores exactly one dataset. Blending multiple datasets on a single chart is a dashboard job, not a lens job.

One query

Every click in the UI is building a SAQL query. You can open it, read it, and edit it by hand at any point.

Save it or don't

Save a lens when the question is worth keeping, or clip it straight onto a dashboard. Most explorations are throwaway — and that's fine.

Why explorations matter more than they look

New builders often skip past lenses to get to dashboards, and it costs them. Explorer mode is where you:

  • Validate a dataset. Did the join inflate your amounts? Group by account and look. Ten seconds.
  • Answer an ad-hoc question. Someone in a meeting asks which industry closed the most last quarter. You don't need a dashboard for that.
  • Prototype a dashboard chart. Build the query in a lens, get it right, then clip it to a dashboard fully formed.
  • Learn SAQL. Build a query by clicking, then read what the platform wrote. It's the best SAQL tutorial there is.
Treat Explorer mode as your scratchpad. The cost of a wrong turn is one click of undo. Builders who explore fluently produce better dashboards, because they already know what the data looks like before they start designing.

What's ahead in this section

  1. 1

    The Analytics tab and apps

    Put Analytics Studio inside the Lightning app your users already live in, create an app to hold your work, and understand how the Share button controls who sees what.

  2. 2

    Explorer mode basics

    Measures, groupings, trellis, undo/redo and history, query limits, and filters — the core moves you'll use every single day.

  3. 3

    Chart, table, and SAQL modes

    The three ways a lens can show its result, and when each one is the right tool for the job.

  4. 4

    Editing fields and metadata

    Relabel dimensions, assign fixed colors to values, and format measures as currency — changes that apply to the dataset everywhere.

  5. 5

    Conversational Analytics

    Ask for a chart in plain English and let the platform write the query for you.

By the end you'll be able to open any dataset and get to a defensible answer in under a minute — and know exactly which SAQL that answer was built on. Let's start where every user starts: getting to Analytics in the first place.

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