Kumu
  • Getting started
    • Welcome
    • Kumu 101
    • First steps
    • Quick tips
    • Webinars
  • Overview
    • Kumu's architecture
    • Accounts and workspaces
    • Kumu.io and Kumu Enterprise
    • Billing
    • User interfaces
      • Dashboard
      • Settings
      • Map editor
      • View editors
      • Quick Actions
    • Collaborating and sharing
    • Actions and permissions
    • Security
    • Advanced Editor hub
      • @settings reference
      • @controls reference
      • Color reference
      • Property reference
      • Selector reference
  • DISCIPLINES
    • SNA / Network Mapping
    • Systems mapping
    • Systems Practice workbook
  • Guides
    • Activity feed
    • Add-ons
      • Disqus
    • Bridge
    • Cluster
    • Controls
      • Cluster control
      • Color-legend control
      • Filter control
      • Focus control
      • Image control
      • Label control
      • Showcase control
      • SNA-dashboard control
      • Tagged-timeline control
      • Text Control
      • Title Control
      • View toggle control
    • Decorations
      • Direct decorations
      • Data-driven decorations
      • Flags
      • Icons
      • Images
      • Label templates
      • Popovers
    • Default view settings
    • Export
    • Fields
      • Computed fields
    • Filter
    • Focus
    • Forking
    • Grids & Guides
    • Import
      • Structure your data for Kumu
      • Excel / CSV
      • Google Sheets
      • JSON / Blueprints
    • Imported views
    • Layouts
      • Fixed
      • Force-directed
      • Remove overlap
      • Scatter
      • Snap-to
    • Legends
    • Licensing
    • Lightbox
    • Loops
    • Metrics
    • Two-factor authentication
    • Pro workspaces
      • Archiving projects
      • Discussions
    • Partial views
    • Presentations
    • Profiles
      • Markdown
    • Project admin
    • Selectors
    • Shapes
    • Share and embed maps
    • Shortcuts
    • Showcase
    • Slugs
    • Table
    • Templates
      • Geo template
    • URLs
    • Views
    • Widgets
  • About Kumu
    • What is Kumu?
    • How does it work?
    • Where can I get help?
  • Enterprise
    • About enterprise
    • Getting started with VMWare
    • Upgrading
    • Configuration
    • Creating user accounts
    • SSH Access
    • Single sign-on
    • Backing up enterprise data
    • Restoring enterprise data
    • Command line utilities
    • Changelog
  • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Does Kumu have a public API?
    • Does Kumu make use of AI?
    • How do I add annotations?
    • How do I add anchors to my map description?
    • How do I add arrows to my connections?
    • How do I add documents to profiles?
    • How do I add more than one element with the same label?
    • How do I add text dropdowns to my map overview?
    • How do I adjust arrow size?
    • How do I avoid duplicating data?
    • How do I change connection curvature?
    • How do I change font color?
    • How do I change font size?
    • How do I change the default for currency fields?
    • How do I change the length or strength of connections?
    • How do I change the order of control options?
    • How do I change the position of my element labels?
    • How do I cite Kumu?
    • How do I collapse duplicate connections?
    • How do I copy a map to another project?
    • How do I control label size while scaling element size?
    • How do I control text wrapping?
    • How do I convert a project from private to public?
    • How do I convert a project from public to private?
    • How do I create dynamic on/off toggles for my map?
    • How do I customize link text in popovers?
    • How do I customize the order of my legend?
    • How do I delete a project, map, or view?
    • How do I delete data from my project?
    • How do I downgrade my subscription?
    • How do I edit virtual elements?
    • How do I get rid of duplicates?
    • How do I hide elements without connections?
    • How do I hide images from the map but keep them in the profile?
    • How do I hide labels on my map?
    • How do I hide the settings button?
    • How do I keep elements from moving?
    • How do I list an element's connections in its profile?
    • How do I make elements transparent?
    • How do I make sense of my receipt?
    • How do I open a sub-system when clicking on an element?
    • How do I remove the Opposite entry from my legend?
    • How do I remove unneeded controls?
    • How do I remove unwanted legend entries?
    • How do I rename my map/view?
    • How do I restructure my adjacency matrix?
    • How do I save my changes in Kumu?
    • How do I select options by default in my control?
    • How do I set a minimum or maximum zoom level for my map?
    • How do I show the Settings button?
    • How do I size elements based on number of connections?
    • How do I transfer a project?
    • How do I update my credit card information?
    • How much data can my Kumu project handle?
    • How do my readers switch between maps and views?
    • My data won't import. What can I do?
    • My Kumu embed is not working. What can I do?
    • My map disappeared. How do I bring it back?
    • My PDF won't export. What can I do?
    • What pricing plans does Kumu have?
    • Where can I find my invoices?
    • Where can I find example Kumu projects?
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Elements, connections, and loops
  • Fields
  • Projects
  • Maps
  • Views
  • Trash

Was this helpful?

Edit on GitHub
  1. Overview

Kumu's architecture

PreviousWebinarsNextAccounts and workspaces

Last updated 1 month ago

Was this helpful?

We've designed Kumu from the ground up to be a powerful, flexible mapping machine, capable of mapping complexity of all kinds. Through that process, we've settled on a specific architecture—a way of organizing and visualizing data and information—that makes it possible to create many different kinds of maps.

System maps, network maps, stakeholder/actor maps, community and asset maps, mind maps, concept maps...the list goes on!

In this guide, we'll explain each of the building blocks that make up Kumu's architecture. Take 10 minutes to read through and learn the difference between each building block—it will be really helpful in the long run!

Jump to a section

Elements, connections, and loops

In Kumu, you can use elements, connections, and loops to represent your system or network. Visually speaking, elements are circles, connections are lines between the elements, and loops are groups of two or more connections.

You can use these visual components in all kinds of different ways, but here are some common uses that we see:

Elements
Connections
Loops

Factors in a system (causes and effects)

Cause-and-effect relationships

Causal loops

Stocks

Flows

Sub-systems

Decisions, chances, and ends in a decision tree

Paths along the decision tree

Multi-part decisions

Steps in a process

Paths from one step to the next

Sub-processes

People

Interpersonal relationships

Sub-networks or communities

People & organizations

Connect people to the organizations they're affiliated with

Sub-networks or communities

Authors & books/articles they've co-authored

Connect authors to their books/articles

Sub-networks or communities

Stakeholders & areas of interest

Connect stakeholders to the areas they're interested in

Sub-networks or communities

Funders, non-profits, and population groups

Connect funders to non-proftis, and connect non-profits to the populations they serve

Sub-networks or communities

Companies and sectors/industries

Connect companies to their sectors/industries

Sub-networks or communities

Fields

Each element, connection, and loop can hold additional rich information about the item. This information is stored in fields, which have two components: a name, and a value.

The most basic field is named "Label". Any value you add to an element's or loop's "Label" field will be displayed as a text label underneath or on top of that element or loop. (Connection labels are hidden by default, but it's possible to show those labels as well). In addition to "Label", there are three other pre-named fields:

  1. Type — a field designed to help you separate your items into categories. For example, you elements might have "Person" or "Organization" in their type field, to clarify what the element represents.

  2. Description — a field designed to hold longer descriptions of an item. Descriptions can include multiple paragraphs, and even images and videos.

  3. Tags - a field designed to hold multiple values that each describe your item in a different way. For example, a connection between a person and a non-profit might have "Strong relationship", "Board Member", "Donor", and "Advocate" all stored as separate values in the Tags field, adding rich detail to the person's relationship with the organization.

Projects

Projects are the top level of Kumu's architecture. Think of projects as a "buckets" that contain everything defined above: elements, connections, loops, fields, views, and maps.

Within a project, you can have both Maps and Views.

There's an important distinction to be made between a project, a map, and a view: the project contains the master list of elements, connections, and loops, while the map and the view simply borrow a collection of data from that list. If you edit an element, connection, or loop while working on a map or view, you're not just editing the map or view—you're actually editing the project's master list.

If you ever find yourself creating multiple maps within one project, it's very important to remember that concept, because when you edit an item (for example, change an element's Label, Type, or any other field value) those changes will be applied to every other map that is borrowing the same item from the project's master list.

If you only have one map in your project, don't sweat this detail!

Projects can also remember a few more important things:

  • The project's privacy level (public or private)

Maps

In Kumu, a map is a collection of elements, connections, and loops—each map can remember a full list of which elements, connections, and loops should be included.

In addition, a map can remember specific positions for all of its elements, and it can remember the positions of any labels that represent loops.

A map can also remember a few default settings:

  • Default view — the view whose rules will be applied to the map by default.

  • Default element behavior — tells the map whether new elements should stay in a fixed position by default, or float around, relying on their connections to pull them into a final position

  • Default connection direction — tells the map whether new connections should be "Directed" (arrow on one end), "Undirected" (no arrows), or "Mutual" (arrows on both ends) by default

Finally, a map can remember a rich description about itself, called a "Map Overview", which Kumu displays next to the map so your audience can read it:

To create a new map: click on the first dropdown next to the project title in the top-left corner of your screen, and choose + NEW MAP.

Views

A view is a collection of rules that affect the visual appearance of your elements, connections, and loops.

There are a lot of different kinds of rules that you can create. For example:

  • All elements with "Person" in their Type field should be colored blue.

  • All connections with "Very Weak" in their Tags field should be filtered out (temporarily hidden).

  • Connections should be drawn between all the people who have the value "Finance" in a field named "What do you want to learn?".

Note that these rules are not tied to specific elements, connections, or loops, but instead are designed to act on groups of items, based on data and information inside of them—the rules in your views are all data-driven. Whether you have ten, one-hundred, or even one-thousand elements, the first rule from the list above is going to find every single element with "Person" in the Type field and color it blue.

It gets better! Let's say you add some elements and connections to Kumu and apply a few rules, just so you can build a prototype visualization with the data you have on hand. Then, you decide that the prototype looks good, so you load in your full dataset, adding tens or hundreds more elements and connections to the visualization. Good news: your view rules will apply to all the new items. No need to re-create every rule from your prototype!

All view rules are completely scaleable—Kumu will apply them to any and all new data you add, whether you're adding new elements, connections, and loops, or just adding new values to your fields.

To create a new view: click on the first dropdown next to the project title in the top-left corner of your screen, and choose + NEW VIEW.

To learn more about building views and creating specific types of rules, check out the guides below. There's a lot to learn about views! But don't feel like you need to learn it all at once. You can get a lot of value out of Kumu without knowing all this information, but this is a great place to return to when you feel ready to take your Kumu skills to the next level.

Guide
Main idea

Learn your way around the user interfaces that allow you to edit views.

Change visual appearance of items (color, size, pattern, shadow, image, etc.).

Temporarily show or hide items.

Make certain items translucent, fading them subtly into the background.

Focus on a single element, hiding everything else. Then, expand outward to reveal more elements and connections, step-by-step.

Connect elements automatically, based on the information in their fields.

Connect elements based on their "mutual friends" (elements they're both connected to).

Import rules from another view, so that you don't have to re-build them.

Customize the way people interact with your map.

Change the way Kumu positions your elements.

Trash

Last but not least, Kumu's architecture includes the trash.

For instructions on how to create elements, connections, and loops in Kumu, check out the section of our First Steps guide.

Beyond those four pre-named fields, you can create as many custom fields as you want—you can have a "Website" field, a "Net Assets" field, a "What do you want to learn?" field, etc. Fields can be created and edited using :

For more information on fields and how to create and customize them, .

Any you have created to share your work

Any that can edit your project

Any that have been installed on the project

Any you have added, to tell people how they can or cannot share or re-use your work

Click on the menu in the top-left corner of your project to change any project settings.

You create new projects and see all your existing projects on your .

For more info on how to build the basic structure of your map, check out our .

The trash is a list of all the elements, connections, and loops that, once upon a time, were the the lifeblood of your system map, the all-powerful hubs of your network map, the social-media-savvy influencers of your stakeholder map...until you realized that the data was totally inaccurate, imprecise, full of typos (*gasp*), or duplicated (*shudder*), and deleted it using the .

All prose aside, the trash is where your project stores the items that have been deleted from every single map. From time to time, you may want to to empty it out!

But, we should give credit where credit is due: the trash is your last line of defense against accidentally deleting data (a.k.a. hard work, time, and effort) from your project. If you ever think that you've deleted something accidentally, and you need to recover it from the trash, , or just , and the Kumu team will find a solution.

Elements, connections, and loops
Fields
Projects
Maps
Views
Trash
Building your first map
profiles
check out our full guide on fields
presentations
contributors
add-ons
license
dashboard
full guide on the map editor
little trash can icon
follow this guide
check out this guide
ask for help
View editors
Decorate
Filter
Showcase
Focus
Cluster
Bridge
Imported views
Controls
Layouts
Elements, connections, and loops
profile
map overview with video