Project Context
Project Context is where you establish the decision frame and engagement foundations before moving into planning. The quality of the brief directly affects how useful the Canvas, formal plan, and AI suggestions are downstream — a specific brief produces specific guidance.
EVA is CE Canvas’s AI assistant. In this area it reads your uploaded project documents and extracts draft content for each brief field, so you are editing and confirming rather than writing from scratch.
Recommended workflow
- Upload project materials — give EVA source documents to work from
- Build the brief — step through each field in guided setup, accepting or editing EVA’s drafts
- Continue to Canvas — once the brief has enough content, move into planning
If you have no documents yet, you can skip step 1 and build the brief directly. You can always add materials later and EVA will update its suggestions.
Step 1 — Upload project materials
Navigate to Project Materials in the left sidebar (directly below Project Context).
Click Add to upload a file (PDF, DOC, DOCX, or image up to 50 MB) or add a URL. Useful materials include:
- Project briefs, council reports, and business cases
- Existing research, evidence summaries, or prior engagement findings
- Policies, strategies, and regulatory guidance
- Meeting notes, decisions, and issue logs
- Stakeholder analysis or background profiles
After uploading, EVA processes each document in the background. A status indicator on each file shows when processing is complete. Once done, return to Project Context — EVA’s extracted suggestions will be waiting in the brief fields.
Step 2 — Build the brief
Navigate to Project Context in the left sidebar. On a new project the page opens with a prompt to start guided setup.
Choose Start with project materials if you have already uploaded documents, or Build context directly to begin filling fields immediately.
Guided setup walks through each field one at a time. If EVA has extracted a suggestion from your documents, it appears as a draft in the text area.
For each field you can:
- Accept the draft — confirm what EVA found and move on
- Edit the draft — revise it to match your project more precisely
- Write your own — clear the draft and type directly
- Leave it blank — skip optional fields and return later
The status panel on the right tracks which fields are defined, partial, or still missing as you work through the sequence.
Step 3 — Complete and continue
Once any content has been saved to the brief, the completion view replaces the guided setup prompt. This shows the status of each section and field at a glance.
The brief is organised into two sections:
- Decision Frame — the decision being made, who holds authority, what is already fixed, and what is open to influence
- Supporting Details — constraints and realities, sensitivities, timing anchors, and additional context
The EVA panel shows quick actions for drafting or refining individual fields and lists how many source documents EVA is drawing from.
When you are ready, click Continue to Canvas to move into engagement planning.
Re-entering guided setup
You can return to guided setup at any time to refine a specific field. Click the edit action on any field card from the completion view — it opens guided setup focused on that field. The rest of the brief is preserved.
Good practice
- Upload project materials before building the brief if documents exist — EVA’s extraction reduces manual entry significantly
- The brief does not need to be complete to continue to Canvas — add what you know now and refine it as the project develops
- Review and update the brief if key decisions or constraints change mid-engagement
- Keep material titles clear so future team members can understand each resource at a glance
Next steps
- Engagement Planning — start the Canvas and formal planning flow once the context foundations are in place
- Engagement Canvas — shape stakeholders, methods, and approach from the brief
- Engagement Playbooks — configure methods, activities, and tasks based on your project type