Community overview & creating one
The Community module attaches a complete social platform to your project: a member feed, groups, courses, events, and member profiles. It’s the “turn an audience into a membership” piece — your site markets, your community retains.
How it’s set up
Section titled “How it’s set up”A community is not pages inside your site — it’s a full standalone portal that runs next to it, on its own address:
- Without a custom domain: a default community address for your project.
- With a custom domain:
community.mysite.com— see Community on your domain.
Your site links to it (a “Community” button in your nav), visitors click through, sign up, and they’re in.
Creating a new community
Section titled “Creating a new community”- Open Settings → Modules.
- On the Community card, click Add community.
- Genesis provisions the community (named after your project) and the card flips to ENABLED with an Open community → link.
If your project already has an active custom domain, Genesis also tries to claim
community.<your-domain> for it automatically — so the portal lands on your brand from day
one.
That’s the whole creation flow — no forms, no wizard.
What’s inside
Section titled “What’s inside”Your community comes with the full feature set:
| Area | What it is |
|---|---|
| Feed | The member activity stream — posts, reactions, discussion |
| Groups | Topic spaces within the community |
| Courses | Structured learning content for members |
| Events | A calendar with RSVPs |
| Members | Profiles and the member directory |
| Direct messages | Member-to-member chat |
| Access levels | Groups gated by what a member has bought or been granted |
| Challenges | Time-boxed activities members take part in |
| Live rooms | Live streams and video calls inside the community |
| Gamification | Points, levels, and badges for participation |
Native mobile apps
Section titled “Native mobile apps”The community isn’t only a web portal: members can install a native iOS and Android app for it, with push notifications and deep links straight into a post, a course, a chat, or a live room. The community they join on your domain is the same one they carry on their phone.
Where you manage it
Section titled “Where you manage it”Day-to-day administration — privacy, groups, courses, events, member moderation — happens in the community portal itself (the Open community → link), where you’re the admin. That’s also where you brand the emails it sends and set the reply-to address — see Community emails. Genesis manages the connection: activation status and which address it lives on.
Things worth knowing
Section titled “Things worth knowing”- One community per project. A project maps to exactly one community.
- Separate sign-in. The community has its own member accounts — signing into the community is separate from anything on your site.
- The portal isn’t embeddable into site pages — it’s a destination, not a widget. Link to it prominently. If you want the community’s screens inside your own site instead, that’s the Community toolkit, on a Web app project.
Two ways to show it
Section titled “Two ways to show it”| Community portal | Community toolkit | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Its own address (community.mysite.com) | Inside the site Genesis built for you |
| Design | The portal’s own | Restyled by the AI to match your brand, screen by screen |
| Requires | Any project | A Web app project |
| Members sign in | In the portal | Through a secure Estage login on your site |
Already have a community on Estage?
Section titled “Already have a community on Estage?”Don’t create a new one — import your legacy project and Genesis will use the existing community, members and content intact.