---
title: "Custom codes and snapshots"
url: "https://helpdesk.telmarhelixa.com/en/article/custom-codes-and-snapshots"
language: "en"
last_updated: "2026-10-27T15:17:34.786Z"
---

# Custom codes and snapshots

## **Custom Audiences**

Saves complex row, column or tablebase syntax for ongoing reuse across compatible surveys.

### **Saving a custom audience**

1.  **Code the segment:** build the crosstab and code the rows and columns that define the audience.
2.  **Initiate save:** in the top-right **Settings** choose **Save audiences**, or open the kebab menu beside a row or column item and choose **Save Custom Audience**. Any columns, rows or tablebases can be saved.
3.  **Choose location and name:** give a filename and choose which columns and rows to save. You must pick a drive: your personal drive or a shared company drive.

### **Managing, sharing and favoriting**

-   **Direct sharing:** audiences saved in a Personal Drive can be shared with individual colleagues without moving them to the Shared Company Drive. In **Manage Custom Codes**, select the audience, click **Share**, and enter names or email addresses with **Editor** or **Viewer** rights. Shared definitions appear immediately in the recipient's **Shared with me** directory and in their Codebook under the *Shared with me* custom audience category (for studies with matching survey IDs).
-   **Star favoriting:** in Manage Custom Codes, click the **Star** icon to favorite an audience. Favorites are grouped in the Favorites section of the modal and appear in the Codebook under the **Favorites** branch.
-   **Copy to My Drive:** when browsing the *Shared with me* or *Company Drive* tabs, open an audience's kebab menu and choose **Copy to my drive** to create an independent, fully editable copy in your private storage.

### **Importing custom audiences across surveys**

To use an audience defined in a different survey in a report built on another survey:

1.  Open report settings and select **Manage Custom Codes** (formerly Manage Custom Audiences).
2.  Set the audience filter to **Show all** to see definitions across all accounts and surveys.
3.  Click the audience or its kebab menu and choose **Import Custom Audience**.
4.  Explore imports the boolean logic into the active report's Codebook under the **Custom Audience** category. If individual codes are missing or incompatible with the active survey, Explore suppresses the unweighted respondent (**resps**) and audience reach (**aud (000)**) metrics but keeps the underlying syntax.

Manage Custom Codes can also import JSON definitions (see Explore - Report Settings). It also has a **Custom media** tab for saved custom media; to save media, see Explore - Report Settings. Factor scores from Factor Analysis can be saved as custom audiences (see Explore - Factor Analysis).

## **Snapshots**

Captures the complete active state of a report for rapid restoration. A snapshot is a full state capture. In the top bar the Snapshots button opens a dropdown to create a new snapshot, apply an existing one, or open the **Manage Snapshots** modal.

-   **Naming:** a custom name is requested as soon as a snapshot is created.
-   **Manage Snapshots modal:** rename, delete, or export selected snapshots to Excel.
-   **Snapshot duplication:** duplicating an Explore document automatically copies all its snapshots into the new file, preserving historical baseline comparisons.
-   **Universal export access:** snapshot crosstab exports are available to every permission tier, so **Viewers as well as Editors** can download snapshot tables to Excel.