Community overview & creating one
Add a full community to your project — member feed, channels, courses, and events — running on its own address next to your site.
The Community module attaches a complete social platform to your project: a member feed, channels, courses, events, and member profiles. It's the "turn an audience into a membership" piece — your site markets, your community retains.
You add it in Genesis from your project's Settings → Overview, on the Community card.
Before you start
- You need to be the project owner — only the owner can add the community.
- The project is a website or web app. The Community card isn't offered on a mobile app project.
- Already run a community on the classic ESTAGE platform? Don't create a new one — import it instead.
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
- Open Settings → Overview.
- On the Community card, click Add community.
- Genesis provisions the community — named after your project, with your project's logo — opens it in a new tab, and the card shows On with an Open community ↗ link.
Note
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. Check Community on your domain before attaching it by hand.
That's the whole creation flow — no forms, no wizard.
To bring courses, resources and videos from an ESTAGE hub into your community, see Deploying hub content.
What's inside
Your community comes with the full feature set:
| Area | What it is |
|---|---|
| Feed | The member activity stream — posts, reactions, discussion |
| Posts & polls | Text, media and polls, posted now or scheduled — see Posts, polls and scheduling |
| Stories | Members' stories, shown above the feed — see Stories |
| Channels | Separate spaces with their own feed, members and topics |
| Courses | Structured learning content for members |
| Events | A calendar with RSVPs |
| Members | Profiles and the member directory; each member manages their own account |
| Messages & calls | Member-to-member chat and calls — see Messages and calls |
| Paid access | Channels, courses and posts gated by what a member has bought or been granted |
| Challenges | Day-by-day programs that unlock step by step |
| Resources & videos | Downloads, a video catalogue and partner opportunities |
| Live | Live streams, interactive stages and scheduled events |
| Gamification | Points, levels and a leaderboard for participation |
| Analytics | Growth, activity and at-risk members |
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. You set the app up from the community's Settings → Add-ons → Mobile App Setup — see Member Blaze, affiliates & the mobile app.
Where you manage it
Day-to-day administration — privacy, channels, courses, events, member moderation — happens in the community portal itself (the Open community ↗ link), where you're the admin. Start with Running your community — the admin settings for a map of every tool. 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.
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 website or web app 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?
Don't create a new one — import your legacy project and Genesis will use the existing community, members and content intact.
Things worth knowing
- One community per project. The Overview card creates and opens one community for the project. (A project with several apps can connect a separate community to each app through the toolkit.)
- 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.