How it works
How CE Canvas works: the community engagement process in one project record
CE Canvas is community engagement software that runs every project through the same six stages your strategy or framework sets out. The engagement plan, the stakeholder map, the analysis and the what-we-heard report come from one record, so the result is defensible by design.
The six-stage community engagement process
Context
Define the decision, what is open to influence and the constraints
Jump to this stagePlan
Write the engagement plan: objectives, stakeholders, level and methods
Jump to this stageDeliver
Run activities online and in person, with the evidence in one place
Jump to this stageUnderstand
AI turns what you heard into themes and findings, each traced to its source
Jump to this stageReport back
Close the loop with a what-we-heard report for community and decision-makers
Jump to this stageLearn
Evaluate, and carry lessons and community insight into the next project
Jump to this stage
Project context
Context
Capture the decision, the mandate, the framework and the constraints before anything else.
- The decision being made, who makes it and when
- What stakeholders can and cannot affect, confirmed before planning starts
- Mandate, framework, policy and constraints, with the source documents attached
Practice guides: Operationalizing an engagement framework · What is community engagement?
Engagement canvas and plan
Plan
Define what is open to influence, who to involve, the level and methods, and the approvals.
- The decision, who holds authority and what is fixed, on one page
- Stakeholders, priority groups and deliberate outreach
- Level of engagement and the promise you make to participants
Practice guides: The community engagement process: 10 steps · How to write a community engagement plan
Delivery timeline and activities
Deliver
Run activities with your existing channels and platforms. Bring the evidence into one record.
- Phases, milestones and activities in date order, with tasks and owners
- Evidence from your online engagement tools, surveys, meetings and submissions in one place
- Visibility for leadership without a status report
Practice guides: Beyond the digital engagement platform · Tracking input to decisions
Explore and what we heard
Understand
Analyze what was heard with the CE Canvas AI assistant, with every finding referenced back to its source.
- Responses clustered into topics you can explore, each linked to the comments behind it
- Coverage: who you intended to reach against who actually responded
- Human review and sign-off before anything leaves the team
Practice guides: Tracking input to decisions · AI in community engagement: what matters
What we heard, and the decision report
Report back
Show participants and decision-makers what was heard and how it affected the decision.
- Report-back to participants: what we heard, what changed, what did not and why
- Decision report for leadership with the evidence trail
- Traceability from input to outcome
Practice guides: Closing the loop · What we heard report template
Community update and lessons
Learn
Compare across projects, improve the framework and keep organizational knowledge.
- Tell participants what changed, and track the follow-up you promised
- Compare projects across the organization
- Feed improvements back into the framework and templates
- Keep the organizational knowledge when people move on
Practice guides: Operationalizing an engagement framework · Closing the loop
AI assistant
An AI assistant that shows its working
The CE Canvas AI assistant drafts engagement plans, analyzes submissions and audits strategies and frameworks inside the project record. It is grounded in your context, your framework and your chosen standards, it cites its sources, and staff decide what is used.
- Source-referenced: every finding links back to the submission, document or passage it came from.
- Context-grounded: works from your framework, policies and standards, not generic advice.
- Human in control: nothing is published, sent or decided without a person signing it off.
- Clear guardrails: what the assistant will not do is documented in the trust centre.
A draft, held until a person commits it
The assistant drafts a plan section in place and marks it as not saved. Discard or replace are the only actions, so nothing lands without sign-off.
It asks rather than guesses
On a project with no brief or materials, it declines to draft the objectives and asks for the decision, who is affected, or a document to work from.
Every point cites its evidence
Asked which issues are likely to be contentious, it answers point by point with the source document for each, adds a practice note, and lists what it drew from.
Works with what you have
Keep your online engagement tools.
EngagementHQ, Social Pinpoint (now Social Point by Open Point), Go Vocal, PublicInput, SurveyMonkey, website forms, spreadsheets and document systems stay in place. CE Canvas sits behind them as the planning, governance, evidence and reporting layer.
See it on one of your own projects
A guided pilot runs one real project end to end, configured to your framework, with agreed success measures.