The Preferences page controls how Communitrak works for your whole community. You can turn modules on or off, choose what new members start with, set Financial and Requests options, set your timezone and contact details, and brand Communitrak with your logo and colors. This article walks through every card on the page in the order you'll see it.
Opening the Preferences page requires the View Community Preferences permission.
Changing anything on it, including the module switches, requires the Update Community Preferences permission. Without it, you can see every setting but the controls are grayed out.
Custom fields have their own permissions. Opening the list requires View Custom Fields, and adding, renaming, or deleting fields requires Manage Custom Fields.
Turning Access Control on or off is done by Communitrak, not from your account.
Some options may be unavailable or appear differently depending on your level of account access.
Log in to Communitrak at https://app.communitrak.com.
In the main navigation menu, expand Community and click Preferences.
The page opens on the Preferences tab of My Community. The left column holds a card for each module, and the right column holds General Settings, Communication Preferences, and Appearance & Branding.
Each module card has a switch in its top-right corner. Click it to turn the module on or off. A message confirms the change, and it takes effect for everyone in the community right away.
The switches, in the order they appear, are Bulletin Board, Calendar, Articles, Amenities, Alerts, Messages, Files, Financial, Forms, Parking, Pets, Classifieds, Requests, and Violations. Every module starts on except Pets and Classifieds, which you turn on when you're ready to use them.
When a module is off, it disappears from the main navigation menu for leaders and residents alike, and a saved link to one of its pages takes you to the Dashboard instead.
Some module cards have extra settings that appear only while the module is on. They're covered below.
The Members card sits between Articles and Amenities and holds the defaults for new and existing members.
Choose the role a new member gets when they're invited, imported, or added to a household, or when they join the community on their own. If a different role is picked for a member at that moment, that choice wins. Each role in the list is tagged System or Custom, and roles with leader access are also tagged Leader. Most communities leave this set to Resident.
Community Admin, and any role with the Manage Communitrak Billing or Manage AI Usage permission, can't be the Default Member Role, so they aren't offered here. A role that is the Default Member Role also can't be given those two permissions.
This sets how the Members list looks the first time each person opens it. Anyone can still change their own columns from that page, and it never shows someone contact details they couldn't already see.
Columns: choose which optional columns appear: Role, Title, Email, and Phone. Use Select All at the top of the list to check or clear them all. Your choice saves when you close the list. If you clear them all, the list shows each member's name and address only. Out of the box, Role, Title, and Email are on.
Sort by: choose First Name, Last Name, Address, Role, Title, Email, or Phone. The default is Last Name.
Custom fields store extra information about your members beyond the standard profile, such as a gate remote number or a parking space. Values are entered on each member's profile, in the custom fields card.
With Manage Custom Fields, the button next to Custom Fields reads Configure. With only View Custom Fields, it reads View and opens the list with the editing controls grayed out.
Click Configure next to Custom Fields.
In the Member Custom Fields dialog, click New Field, type the field name, and press Enter or click the checkmark.
To rename a field, click its pencil icon, change the name, and press Enter or click the checkmark. Press Esc to cancel.
To delete a field, click its trash icon, then click Delete.
Click Close when you're done.
These switches decide which contact details are shown in the directory for newly invited or imported residents: Email, Phone, Mailing Address, Additional Contacts, and Property Address. All five start on.
Existing residents aren't changed, and every resident can still adjust their own visibility in their account. To control which roles can see contact information at all, edit role permissions on the Roles tab.
While Messages is on, the card shows Shared HOA Inbox staff. By default, the HOA's shared inbox is read and answered by people whose role has HOA inbox access, and you don't need to change anything. You can also choose a member group, such as your board, whose members can read and answer it too. Communitrak asks you to confirm before it saves. Access follows the group as people join and leave it. See "Using the HOA Shared Inbox" for details.
While Financial is on, the card shows three settings. If it's off, the card reads "Enable the Financial module to configure its preferences."
Choose your community's name to have the community absorb processing fees, or Members to add the fee to the amount residents pay. Your community's card and ACH rates are listed below the dropdown. Either way, the community always covers the processing fees on amenity reservation fees and deposits.
If any households use Auto Pay and you switch from the community to Members, Communitrak first asks you to confirm, because those residents agreed to pay only the charge amount. Clicking Change fee responsibility ends their Auto Pay enrollments and emails each one to re-enroll. Until they do, their charges aren't paid automatically. Switching back to the community doesn't affect Auto Pay. See "Enabling Payments" for more.
The number of days after a charge is created that it's due, from 1 to 365. The default is 30. It fills in the due date when you create a charge, and you can still change the date on each charge. The value saves when you click out of the field.
The number of days after the due date before a charge counts as past due, from 1 to 365. The default is 30. It saves when you click out of the field.
While Pets is on, the card lets you list the records every household must keep on file for its pets, such as a rabies vaccination or a pet license, and choose when owners are reminded before a record expires. Click Save Pet Settings after making changes. See "Setting Up Pets and Required Pet Records" for details.
Classifieds has no settings on this page beyond its switch. Once it's on, residents can add and review local vendors. Sponsored listings, reports, and categories are managed from Manage on the Classifieds page. See "Setting Up Classifieds and Sponsored Listings" for details.
While Requests is on, the card shows a checkbox for each request category: General Requests, Maintenance Requests, and Architectural Requests. Uncheck a category to stop offering it. Review rules for each category, such as committee voting, are set up from the Requests module. See "Architectural Review & Committee Voting" for details.
The Forms & Polls Banner checkbox shows a banner on the Requests page directing residents to submit new requests through a form, which is useful when you want to collect specific information up front. See "Collecting Requests Through a Form" for details.
Violations has its own card and switch directly below Requests.
Access Control is a paid add-on, so its card has no switch for your community. While it's off, the card describes the feature, and Get started with Access Control opens a chat with Communitrak Support. If your community used Access Control before and its bridge is still registered, the card offers Contact us to reactivate instead.
While it's on, the card shows:
Bridge Status: Connection (Connected, Stale, or Disconnected), Last Heartbeat, whether UniFi Access is Reachable or Unreachable, and the Bridge Version.
System Summary: how many Doors, NFC Cards, and Synced Members you have.
See "Setting Up Access Control" for managing doors, schedules, and credentials.
Choose Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, Hawaii, or Alaska time. The default is Eastern. Communitrak uses it for times across your community, such as amenity hours and reservations, scheduled messages and posts, and the times shown in emails.
When checked, residents can still be invited and create their accounts, but they can't sign in or see anything until you uncheck it. Use it to set up and review your community before launch. Residents who try to sign in see a message that your community leaders are preparing for launch. Communitrak doesn't notify anyone when you lift the curtain, so let residents know yourself.
Only people whose role has the Black Curtain Access Override permission can sign in while the curtain is up. Anyone else who is already signed in is signed out within a few minutes.
Communitrak asks you to confirm either way:
Checking the box opens Turn on Black Curtain?, which explains who will be signed out. Click Turn on Black Curtain to save it.
If your own role doesn't have Black Curtain Access Override, the dialog reads Turn on Black Curtain and sign yourself out? and warns that you won't be able to sign back in until someone whose role has it turns Black Curtain off. The button reads Turn on and sign me out.
Unchecking the box opens Turn off Black Curtain?. Click Turn off Black Curtain and everyone can sign in right away.
Click Cancel to leave the setting as it was.
Check this to give your community early access to features in the final stages of development. Beta features are provided as-is and may change or contain issues, and your feedback helps shape them before they're released to everyone.
AI features are on unless you turn them off. This covers the AI assistant and the Today card on the Dashboard for leaders, the writing tools in the editor, suggested subjects and titles, condensing to an alert, reply drafts, request and message thread summaries, and pet photo auto-fill and matching. Uncheck it and every AI feature is turned off for the whole community, and no community content is sent to an AI service. The change reaches everyone who is signed in within a few minutes, without them signing out. See "Using AI Features in Communitrak" for what each tool does and what it costs.
Community Email Address: if a member replies to an email or message sent by Communitrak, the reply may be routed to this address.
Community Phone Number: residents may be directed to call this number with questions.
SMS Display Name: a short name shown at the start of text message alerts, as in "Sunset Ridge: The pool will be closed today." Up to 30 characters. Leave it blank to use your full community name. A shorter name leaves more room for your message in a single text.
Unlike the rest of the page, this card doesn't save as you type. Make your changes, then click Save Communication Preferences or press Enter in any field. The button stays grayed out until something has changed.
This card sets what appears in the top-left corner of Communitrak and your community's brand color.
Logo: choose Communitrak Logo (the default, with your community name below it), Community Name (your name in a Brand Font you pick), or Custom Logo (an image you upload with Upload Custom Logo: JPEG, PNG, or GIF, up to 10 MB).
Brand Color: pick a color with the swatch or type a hex code. It colors the sidebar, buttons, links, and highlights in Communitrak, and the accents on your public community website. Click Clear to go back to the default neutral theme.
See "Customizing Your Logo and Brand Color" for step-by-step instructions and tips.
Almost everything on this page saves the moment you change it, and a message confirms each save. The exceptions are the two Financial day fields (save when you click out of them), the Members list Columns (saves when you close the list), Pets (Save Pet Settings), and Communication Preferences (Save Communication Preferences).
Default contact visibility and Default Member Role apply only to members added after you change them. Existing members keep what they have.
Branding changes show for you right away. Everyone else sees them the next time they open or reload Communitrak.
If your Communitrak subscription is in read-only status, every control on this page, including the module switches, is grayed out until billing is resolved.
If you have questions or need help, chat with Communitrak Support from any page using the messenger icon in the bottom-right corner.
