Engagement Planning
The Planning phase is where you build the written strategy that supports your engagement. It turns the decisions captured in the Engagement Canvas into a structured, shareable Engagement Plan document — covering objectives, stakeholder analysis, methods, evaluation approach, and closure commitments.
From the project sidebar, navigate to Planning (step 1 in the project workflow).
The Engagement Plan document
The Planning phase contains a single document — the Engagement Plan — built from a structured template with 14 sections organised into four groups. The left panel lists sections by group; clicking a section opens its fields in the editing area to the right.
Document header actions:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Edit | Active editing mode — fields are editable inline |
| Design | Preview and adjust the document layout and theme |
| Quick Preview | See the formatted document as it would appear exported |
| Draft My Document | EVA drafts all incomplete sections at once, using your uploaded resources and canvas content |
Section groups
The 14 sections are organised into four groups. Work through them in order — later sections depend on decisions made in earlier ones.
| Group | Sections | What to capture |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation & Planning | Introduction, Engagement Objectives, Negotiables / Non-Negotiables | The project context, what engagement needs to achieve, and what is or isn’t open to community influence |
| Scoping & Assessment | 2 sections | Stakeholder landscape and participation barriers |
| Engagement Design | 6 sections | Methods, communication channels, accessibility, timeline, and budget |
| Evaluation & Closure | 3 sections | How success is measured and how the feedback loop will be closed |
Working with sections
Each section displays:
- A status badge — In Progress, Ready, or Excluded — showing where the section sits in your workflow
- Mark as Ready — signals to the team that the section content is complete and reviewed
- Exclude Section — removes the section from the document if it doesn’t apply to this project
- Field guidance — each field includes a prompt describing what to capture; fields show a word count and minimum target
Content saves automatically as you type.
Using EVA to draft sections
Draft My Document (document header) — EVA works through all incomplete sections at once and produces a full first draft based on your uploaded Resources & Context and Engagement Canvas content.
Ask EVA (top navigation) — use EVA Chat to work through a specific section conversationally: refine a draft, suggest objectives, or help frame the stakeholder analysis for a particular community.
EVA output is a starting point. Every section should be reviewed against your actual project knowledge — particularly objectives, negotiables, and closure commitments, which require human judgement.
Uploading an existing plan
If your project already has an engagement plan, use Upload Existing Plan on the Planning page to provide a Word or PDF file. CE Canvas will extract relevant content and map it to the appropriate template sections.
Canvas status prompt
If your Engagement Canvas is still in Draft status, a prompt appears at the top of the Planning page with a link to complete it first. The canvas feeds directly into EVA’s section drafting — completing it before drafting the plan produces significantly better suggestions.
Exporting the plan
Use Quick Preview to review the formatted document, then export from the Design view. Exports are available as PDF or Word.
Next steps
- Engagement Delivery — set milestones, phases, and activities once the plan is drafted
- Engagement Canvas — the canvas feeds directly into plan section drafting
- Resources and Context — upload project documents before drafting for better EVA suggestions