Systems Canvas 0.1 is a test version. This guide will be updated with each release.
Quick start
- Open Systems Canvas from its page on this website. The first screen explains where your data is kept.
- Create a canvas and describe the issue in a sentence or two.
- Add the actors: people, groups, institutions, authorities, businesses, and living systems such as rivers or forests.
- Describe the relationships between them, then look at the relationship view to see the picture as a whole.
- Add resources, drivers and constraints, feedback loops, leverage points and intervention ideas, in any order.
- Your work saves automatically. Make a backup regularly, and export a printable canvas to share.
Words used in the canvas
- System
- The people, groups, institutions, resources and living things involved in a situation, and the ways they affect each other.
- Actor
- Anyone or anything that takes part in or is affected by the situation: a person, group, institution, authority, business, or an ecosystem such as a river or forest.
- Relationship
- How two actors are connected: working together, depending on each other, in tension, one having authority over the other, or resources or knowledge flowing between them.
- Resource or asset
- Something the system can draw on: knowledge, land and environment, money, infrastructure, or social and cultural strengths.
- Driver
- Something that pushes the situation along or keeps it going, such as a policy, a custom, an incentive or a change in climate.
- Constraint
- Something that holds change back or limits what is possible.
- Feedback
- When the result of something comes back around to affect its own cause. “Reinforcing” feedback makes a change grow; “balancing” feedback pulls things back.
- Leverage point
- A place in the system where a small, well-chosen change could lead to a larger shift across the whole situation.
- Intervention
- A possible action to change the situation for the better: who would do it, what it assumes, what could go wrong, and how you would know it is working.
- Assumption
- Something you are taking for granted that must be true for an action to work.
- Indicator
- A sign you can watch or measure to see whether things are changing as hoped.
Installing
Systems Canvas is installed only from relationalfuturesinstitute.org, using your browser’s own install option. Once installed, it opens in its own window and works offline. Updates arrive from this website the next time you are online.
- Windows or Mac (Chrome or Edge): use the install option on the Systems Canvas welcome screen, or the install icon in the address bar.
- Android (Chrome): choose “Install app” or “Add to Home screen” from the browser menu.
- iPhone and iPad (Safari): tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
Uninstalling the app can also delete the canvases on that device. Make a backup first.
Backup and restore
A backup is a single file containing a whole canvas. Save it somewhere safe—not only on the same device. To restore, open the backup in Systems Canvas on any device. The file is checked before anything happens, and a restored canvas is always added as a new copy, so nothing you already have is replaced.
Exporting
You can export a printable canvas that you can print or save as a PDF, a spreadsheet (CSV) with one row per item, or structured data (JSON) for other software. Exports are for sharing and cannot be restored; use a backup to move a canvas to another device.
Using a canvas well
- Make it together
- A canvas is most useful when the people affected help make it. Use it in a workshop or conversation, not only at a desk.
- Include more than people
- Rivers, forests, soils and species are part of many situations. Adding them as actors keeps their needs in view.
- Name with care
- A canvas can describe tensions between real people and groups. Use roles or pseudonyms where names are not needed, and agree before sharing it.
- Hold it lightly
- A canvas is a working picture, not the truth. Mark what you are unsure of, and revisit it as you learn.
- Look for loops
- Feedback loops often explain why a problem keeps coming back. They are also good places to look for leverage.
- Be honest about ideas
- Writing down the assumptions and risks of an intervention makes it easier to test, improve or drop.
Known limitations
- Canvases exist only on the device where they were made, until you make a backup.
- Lost or broken devices, cleared browser data, clean-up apps, uninstalling and private windows can all delete canvases.
- Anyone using the same computer and browser can see the canvases.
- The first version has no password and does not encrypt canvases or backups.
- There is no syncing between devices, and several people cannot edit one canvas at the same time.
- The relationship view places actors automatically around an oval; it is not a diagram editor. With many actors, the picture becomes crowded—use “Show connections of” to focus on one actor.
Versions
- 0.1
- Test version for review by RFI: canvases with all eight parts, a simple relationship view, plain-language explanations, backup and restore, printable, CSV and JSON exports, offline use and installation.
- 1.0 (planned)
- First public release, after testing and approval.
Questions and problems
To ask a question, report a problem or raise a security concern, write to hello@relationalfuturesinstitute.org. See also the terms of use for RFI’s digital tools.