Add your own shapes to the modelling canvas
Save the boxes and connector lines your team draws on structure models as templates everyone can drag onto the canvas.
Screenshots are retaken from IQ Entities on every release. Updated 14 October 2026.
Steps papers and structure charts follow a house style: a fund drawn one way, a trust another, a partnership interest as a dashed line. When everyone draws those by hand, the charts drift apart. The Modelling library holds them as templates, so a colleague drags a ready-made fund vehicle onto the canvas instead of rebuilding it.
Add a node template
In Administration, open Modelling Library. The Nodes tab lists your organisation's templates under Your node templates. Choose New node.
Give the template a Name and a Category. Templates are grouped by category on the canvas, so use the categories your team thinks in, such as Funds or Trusts. Choose a Shape, its Fill, Border and Text colours, the Border style, and its Width, Height and Font size. A Flag or an Icon can be added to it too. Choose Save.
The template is listed under Your node templates. Edit or delete it with the buttons on its row.
Add a relationship template
- Open the Relationships tab and choose New relationship. Give it a Label, such as Owns or Manages, and a Category, choose its Line, Thickness and Colour, and add any Preset values it is usually drawn with, such as 51%, 100%. Choose Save.
Tidy the system defaults
Any templates IQ Entities provides are listed under System defaults on each tab. Choose Hide on one your team never uses to take it off the canvas, or Duplicate to start a template of your own from it.
Use them on a model
On a model's canvas, choose Elements in the tools down the left side to open the node templates, grouped by category, and drag one onto the canvas. Relationships, beside it, holds the relationship templates. See Model a proposed reorganisation.
Tips from practice
- Agree the categories before adding templates. A short list the whole team recognises is easier to search than one template per person.
- Duplicate a system default rather than hiding it when you only want a different colour, so the shape everyone already knows stays the same.
- Changing the library needs permission to manage organisation settings. Everyone who can open a model can use the templates.