Intro to communities in <var class="keyword">
<div style="display: inline;">
Engage Digital
</div></var>
========================================================================================================

Communities are databases of identities associated with each channel. Identities allow agents to post messages to various channels within the Engage Digital platform. Before you create a channel, you'll need to create a community for each type of channel being used.

Once created, a community can be used by several different channels of the same digital or social media type.

For example, if you have multiple Facebook accounts, each Facebook channel can use the same community.

Extra value mapping

You can use communities to configure the data that will automatically populate the customer record. This feature is called extra value mapping, and it allows you to leverage data that may already be present or defined in your business, such as in your social media channels, or customer relationship management application.

This data can include keys that are associated with either a standard or custom field.

For example, you decide to collect data from the *customer_id* field in your Apple Messages for Business community. You create a **Customer Number** custom field to hold this data in **Digital \> Custom Fields** . You then map this key to a **Customer Number** field for your community in **Admin \> Channels \> Community Profiles** . Your customer record will then report the data from the *customer_id* key in your *Customer Number* field.

Communities that require an access token

To connect to certain communities such as X/Twitter or digital communities on the platform, the platform requires you to provide an API access token when creating the community. You may configure API access tokens by selecting **Dev Tools \> API access tokens** in the left-hand navigation bar.