Using Beau-Tie
Beau-Tie is a one-event-per-bow-tie editor. Open it at /editor and you'll land on the sample Customer data breach bow tie — the editor never starts empty so you always have something to react to. This guide walks through the practical workflow from blank canvas to exportable artifact.
The article assumes you already know what a bow tie is and what the vocabulary means. If you don't, start with What is a bow tie?
Starting a bow tie
Three ways to begin:
- From the sample. The default — useful when you're learning the tool or want to demonstrate the diagram shape to a workshop. Edit it in place; your changes won't touch the sample for other users (the editor is fully local-first).
- From a blank bow tie. Click New ▾ → Blank bow tie. You'll get an empty record header and an empty canvas. Start by setting the risk event statement, then add causes and impacts.
- From a template. The same dropdown lists built-in templates for common scenarios (cyber, supply chain, regulatory). Templates pre-populate causes, impacts, and example controls so you can focus on tuning rather than scaffolding.
The record header
Above the canvas sits a record bar with metadata fields:
- Risk name — short identifier (e.g. "Customer data breach"). Appears in exports, filenames, and the browser tab title.
- Risk owner — the role accountable for the risk. Use the role title, not a person's name, so the bow tie ages well.
- Company, Business unit, Date — context for the export deliverable. Date is the assessment date (not "today"), used in the PDF cover.
- Tags — free-form labels (e.g. security, iso31000). Help organise large collections of bow ties; surface in JSON exports for filtering.
Building the canvas
The canvas has a fixed layout: causes on the left, the central event in the middle, impacts on the right. Connections between them are auto-routed; you don't position connectors manually.
The central event
Click the central ink-coloured box to edit the event statement. Keep it short and noun-form. The description field below it is free-form context — useful for the export reader, not shown on the canvas.
Adding causes and impacts
Use the + Add cause and + Add impact buttons in the side panel. Each cause / impact gets a name and an optional description. The canvas auto-arranges them vertically; the order you add them in is the order they appear (top-down).
Adding controls
Open a cause or impact in the side panel and click + Add control. Each control has:
- A name and optional description.
- A type (preventive, detective, corrective, directive). Most controls on the cause-side are P or D; most on the impact-side are C; Di can sit anywhere it shapes behaviour.
- A status (existing or planned). Existing controls render as solid filled circles; planned controls render as dashed circles with the implementation timeline attached.
- For existing controls, an effectiveness (ineffective, partially effective, effective, highly effective). For planned controls, an implementation timeline (0-3 / 3-6 / 6-12 / 12+ months).
Controls auto-position along the line connecting their cause / impact to the central event. To reposition manually, hold Shift or Ctrl and drag the control circle along its line. The repositioning saves with the bow tie.
Rating the risk
The Ratings panel at the bottom of the editor (or the Ratings tab on mobile) is where you set residual, target, and appetite. Each is a Likelihood × Consequence pair selected from the matrix's configured labels. The mini-matrix on the right plots the three positions in real time.
Conventions worth following:
- Set residual first — this is the truth on the ground. Don't anchor on what you wish it were.
- Set target after costing the planned controls. A target that requires multiple high-effort treatments to land is fine if it's labelled and tracked; a target that requires unspecified work is wishful thinking.
- Appetite is policy. If your organisation doesn't maintain explicit appetite statements, leave it disabled — better to omit than to invent.
Switching the matrix
The default 5×5 matrix follows the most common encoding worldwide but is fully editable. Click the Matrix button in the toolbar to open the matrix editor:
- Change the size (3×3, 4×4, 5×5, 6×6, 7×7).
- Relabel axis steps (e.g. switch likelihood labels from "Rare / Unlikely / Possible / Likely / Almost Certain" to "<5% / 5–25% / 25–50% / 50–75% / >75%").
- Recolour cells or rename bands.
- Save as default — pins the current matrix as your per-user default; every new bow tie you create will start with it. Useful when your organisation has a standard matrix you reuse across projects.
Exporting
The Export ▾ dropdown offers five formats:
- JSON — full bow-tie envelope (schema v1). The format Beau-Tie itself reads. Use this for backup, version control, or handoff to another Beau-Tie user.
- PNG image — the bow-tie diagram only, on a white ground. Good for slide decks or quick paste-ins.
- Excel risk register — every control as a row in a spreadsheet, grouped by cause / impact. Useful for treatment-tracking workflows that already live in Excel.
- PDF report — six-page A4 landscape report: cover (with the brand Solid M and the risk metadata) → risk statement page (event + causes + impacts list) → bow-tie diagram → controls register → risk matrix with plotted ratings → notes (only if non-empty).
- PowerPoint deck — single-slide presentation with the diagram + ratings, suitable for direct insertion into a deck.
Persistence and offline behaviour
Beau-Tie is fully local-first. Your in-progress bow tie lives in your browser's localStorage; closing the tab and reopening it loads exactly where you left off. There's no server-side storage today (auth + cloud persistence is on the roadmap as W2). Two implications:
- Clearing browser storage = losing the bow tie. Export to JSON regularly if the bow tie matters. The export is fast (~50 ms) and the file is small (~5–20 KB).
- No cross-device sync. Bow ties on your laptop aren't visible from your phone. Use the JSON envelope to move them between devices for now.