What's New: Lens 2025

Lens 2025.8

Workstation templates

Introducing the Image Library

In Lens 2025.8, we have added the Image Library page for workstation templates. This enhancement offers users a streamlined experience when creating new workstation templates using 7fivefive-approved images. It's now possible to check what software is installed on the image, all from the UI!

With the addition of default templates, the image library wizard can efficiently set up a workstation, add it to a pool, and create a new workstation from the template.

This new feature is also available for existing workstation templates.

Images

You asked, we listened! The new Image page lets users view all AWS EC2 images in their account. This tool enables quick filtering and sorting of images to identify potential cost savings. To further enhance the experience, we have added Image Library features, allowing you to view image library metadata such as versions and installed software.

Templates UI refresh

It had been a while since the templates editor had some love, so we’ve given it a polish! We wanted to simplify the user experience when visiting the templates page, so all your templates are now visible in a nice grid.

Other improvements

Workstation availability

We’ve been hard at work optimising the Lens system to ensure you get a workstation as soon as possible if your compute provider encounters capacity issues. Whilst this is not a common occurrence, it can be a real pain when it does happen! With this update, we’ve given Lens a turbo boost to improve the speed at which the workstation availability manager gets you a workstation.

Memory tracking

The session analyser is an awesome tool and has many useful applications. But we thought we could make it even better. So in Lens 2025.8, you can now monitor how much memory your workstations are consuming.

This allows users to get an overview of the big three variables when looking to right-size workstations: CPU, Memory and GPU.

^{Workstations must be running Lens Workstation Agent 2025.8 for this feature.}

User logout improvements

Lens has supported logging out users with its Idle Detection system, and at the end of sessions for a while. However, only certain brokers supported manually logging a user out from the Lens UI. Whilst this is not a common task in Lens, it can be very useful when troubleshooting issues. We’ve added support for disconnecting users across all broker types now!

^{Workstations must be running Lens Workstation Agent 2025.8 for this feature.}

Physical workstation power management improvements

Have you tried turning it off and on again? Maybe you have for virtualised workstations, but now we have added support for physical workstations too. You can now restart or shut down physical workstations from the workstations page.

^{Workstations must be running Lens Workstation Agent 2025.8 for this feature.}

Lens 2025.1

Brokering

Multiple sessions

Users can now have multiple active sessions simultaneously. Administrators can easily control this on a user-by-user basis through Policies.

The new `Allocation limit` option in broker policies

Improved policy targeting options

In Lens 2024, policies could be assigned to users based on their usernames or group memberships. With Lens 2025, these policies can now be assigned based on pool and workstation attributes, too.

New attribute options in the policy rulesets dialog

To assist administrators with configuring these rule sets, the test mapping page has been redesigned to show which policies and rules have matched clearly. The new page makes it clearer which policy is used when there are multiple matching policies.

Tables

Tables in Lens 2025 have undergone a significant enhancement, offering both visual improvements and new functionality. The table toolbars now present a more consistent look across all pages, providing a unified user experience.

A key new feature is the ability to customise table views. Users can now hide or show columns according to their preferences, allowing for a more focused and personalised experience.

Lens now remembers each user's table preferences. This means that your customised views will persist across sessions, saving time and maintaining your preferred setup.

More tables can now be exported, too!

See the full release notes here: