Getting started

Introduction

PE Community Management gives community teams one place to manage members, communication, events, collaborative work, and day-to-day administration.

The platform is open source and designed for self-hosted operation. The organization running it controls the deployment, database, email provider, file storage, and backup process.

How the platform is organized

The platform uses separate administrative and Member workspaces so operational authority does not become participant access by default.

• Administrative workspace: the Owner and authorized Admins manage members, announcements, events, Task Boards, automation, audit logs, communication settings, and supported operational controls.
• Member workspace: Members manage their profile and preferences, use the directory, follow the Feed and notifications, review schedules and assigned tasks, and use encrypted chat when available to them.
• First-run setup creates the Owner with full administrative access. The Owner can delegate supported permissions; Admin access depends on those assignments, while Member access remains participant-facing.

Choose where to begin

• New Owner: complete First-run setup, sign in, review community settings, confirm language and timezone, configure email delivery before email-dependent actions, review permissions, and begin member onboarding.
• Existing Owner or Admin: review Administration and your assigned permissions, then begin with the relevant membership applications, announcements, events, Task Boards, automation, or audit activity.
• Member: sign in to the Member workspace, complete your profile, review updates, manage notification preferences, check schedules and assigned work, and use encrypted chat when enabled and permitted.
• Maintainer: review Architecture, Configuration, Environment variables, Troubleshooting, and Contributing before changing or operating the platform.

First steps for a new community

• 1. Complete first-run setup.
• 2. Sign in as the Owner and review community settings.
• 3. Confirm the default language and timezone.
• 4. Configure email delivery before sending email-dependent communication.
• 5. Review roles and permissions before delegating Admin access.
• 6. Add members or review membership applications.
• 7. Publish an initial announcement or create an event when the community is ready.

Core operating areas

• Members and access: approved applications can become member records. Owners and authorized Admins manage member information, while roles and permissions control access.
• Communication: announcements, Feed updates, notifications, email, and supported reminders and templates serve defined audiences. Administrative and Member notification surfaces remain separate.
• Events and collaborative work: events and calendars coordinate schedules, while Task Boards, reusable task templates, and automation support assigned and repeatable work.
• Encrypted communication: direct and group chat use end-to-end encrypted message content. Private key material remains on authorized devices or in encrypted backups; authorization, recovery, and encrypted-media governance remain separate from account-password security.
• Governance and accountability: audit logs record supported administrative and security-sensitive activity. Permissions, confirmations, device limits, and storage controls support governance without giving Admins access to decrypted private-chat content.

Data ownership and responsibility

The self-hosting operator controls PostgreSQL data, Redis-backed queued work and temporary runtime state, outbound email configuration, uploaded and encrypted-media storage, database and object-storage backups, runtime secrets, and infrastructure access.

That control includes responsibility for availability, upgrades, backups, recovery testing, and infrastructure security. Redis supports queued work and temporary runtime state; it is not the authoritative permanent store for community records.

Continue with

• First-run setup for first-community initialization.
• Administration for roles, permissions, member operations, and governance.
• Configuration for community-wide operational settings.
• Notifications for audience separation, unread state, and preferences.
• Automation for Task Board rules, testing, and run history.
• Encrypted chat for privacy, recovery, authorized devices, and encrypted media.
• Security for authentication, sessions, permissions, and encryption boundaries.
• Troubleshooting for verified setup and operating issues.