Features

Everything you need to code, filter, and report causal claims across qualitative data.

Human first, AI next

Start by hand on a small sample to build your understanding. Then turn on AI coding to scale to hundreds of documents, with human review and edit at every step. AI features need a separate subscription.

Getting started

Free example project

Every new account gets a personal copy of an anonymised tutorial project to practise manual coding on real data.

In-app Guide

A built-in help drawer plus a standalone Guide. Searchable, with contextual help buttons on every panel.

Bookmarks

Save any view as a URL bookmark. The same URL always returns to the same map or table.

Projects and sources

Multiple projects with tags

Organise many projects with tags. Each project holds its own sources, links, and bookmarks.

Upload PDFs and Word files

Drop PDF or DOCX files straight into a project. Use section separators to split a long document into multiple sources.

Custom columns per source

Add fields like gender, location or role to every source and edit them spreadsheet-style.

Source groups

Group sources by stakeholder, theme or any custom column. Compare what each group says causes what.

Sample check

See how your sample breaks down by demographic before you start coding.

Manual coding

Highlight causal claims

Read your source text and highlight phrases. Each highlight becomes a causal link between two factors.

Full text search

Jump to key phrases across selected sources without leaving the coding pane.

Link tags

Mark links as doubtful, hypothetical or weak, or add your own tags. Filter on tags later.

Bulk edit labels

Rename, merge or search-and-replace factor labels across all links at once.

AI coding

One-click coding

Run the full pipeline (auto-code, revise codebook, recode) in one go from a single set-up modal.

Auto-code by paragraph

AI reads each source and extracts causal links. Choose a sample size (1, 5, 20%, 50%, 100%) and skip already-coded sources.

Holistic first pass

Ask the model to draft a whole-network diagram first, then convert it to links. Reduces fragmentation on complex texts.

Revise codebook

Consolidate raw factor labels into a cleaner codebook, optionally with embedding-based pre-clustering.

Recode

Map raw labels onto your codebook by AI index matching or embedding similarity.

Per-source prompts

Add an extra prompt to individual sources when different documents need different framing.

Filter and analyse

Filter pipeline

Stack over twenty filter types in a pipeline. Reorder, repeat or toggle individual steps.

Frequency filters

Keep only the most-cited links and factors. Count by citations, sources or other measures.

Path tracing

Trace paths from any cause to any effect and see which intermediate factors connect them.

Compare groups

Split links by stakeholder group and compare. Who says what?

Animate over time

Watch your map build up by source, time period or any custom column.

Semantic clustering

Cluster similar labels with embeddings. Soft Recode Plus, Auto Recode, Optimized Cluster and Tribes give different angles.

Maps, tables and charts

Interactive map

A live causal network. Click any link to see the underlying quotes. Drag, zoom or arrange on a grid.

Map formatting

Style nodes and edges by colour, size and shape from any factor or link column.

AI map vignettes

AI writes a short evidence-based summary of the current map, with quotes.

Factors table

Editable list of every factor with citation counts, demographic breakdowns and statistical significance testing.

Links table

Every link with its supporting quote. Bulk-edit tags, print quotes grouped by factor pair, or assess evidence quality.

Pivot tables and heatmaps

Drag and drop to cross-tabulate any link or factor field. Heatmaps, charts, significance testing, export.

Reports, sharing and collaboration

Reports from bookmarks

Bundle bookmarked maps and tables into a multi-page report. Every finding links back to the source text.

AI answers

Ask plain-language questions of your project. Answers grounded in your sources, links and factors.

Share projects

Invite collaborators by email with view or edit permissions. Public projects viewable by anyone logged in.

Real-time collaboration

Live updates when teammates add or edit links. Useful for workshops and demonstrations. Requires Team subscription.

Versioning

Restore any earlier state of a project. Roll back accidental bulk edits.

Two-factor authentication

Optional 2FA per account. Admins can enforce it organisation-wide.

Try it now

Full documentation

Step-by-step guidance for every panel: the Causal Map Guide.

Sister site

Run AI-powered qualitative interviews and pipe transcripts straight into Causal Map: QualiaInterviews.