Anonymous & Test Members

Not everyone in your member list is a real, identified contact. Two special member types live alongside regular members so you can keep your data clean while still capturing every interaction:

• Anonymous members are created automatically whenever an unknown phone number or email reaches your workspace — typically inbound calls or SMS from someone who isn't already a contact.
• Test members are sandbox accounts you create on purpose, for QA, demos, training, or load testing.

Both types appear on the Members page under their own tabs, both can have chats and receive messages, and both are workspace-local — they never get a login, never sync to an Account, and aren't counted in member-based billing.

Anonymous Members

Where they come from

Whenever an inbound voice call or SMS arrives from a phone number Gravity Rail doesn't recognize, the system creates an anonymous member so the conversation has somewhere to live. The same thing happens for unknown emails on inbound channels. You don't have to do anything to enable this — it's the default behavior for every workspace with voice or SMS turned on.

Each anonymous member also gets a resolution record that tracks:

• The identifier that brought them in (phone number or email)
• Their current status: pending, resolved, or expired
• Who eventually resolved or expired them, and when

Reviewing the anonymous queue

1. Go to People → Members
2. Click the Anonymous tab

You'll see a list of every anonymous member whose resolution is still pending — i.e., the system has captured them but no one has decided yet whether they're a real contact you want to keep.

The Anonymous tab is only visible to members with the members:admin scope. If you don't see it, ask a workspace admin to grant that scope on your role.

Resolving an anonymous member

When you recognize the caller — for example, you know the phone number belongs to an existing contact — resolve the anonymous member to merge their conversation history into the real one:

1. Find the anonymous member in the Anonymous tab
2. Click Resolve
3. Search for and select the real member to merge into
4. Optionally add a note describing why
5. Confirm

What happens behind the scenes:

• The anonymous member's chats, phone calls, and other workspace data are reattached to the target member.
• The resolution record flips to resolved with your member ID, the timestamp, and your note recorded for audit.
• The anonymous member itself is archived. You can still see it in the resolution history, but it won't show up in member lists or autocomplete.

A few rules the system enforces:

• The target must be a regular member — you can't resolve into another anonymous member, a test member, or an agent.
• If the anonymous member has an active phone call in progress, you'll be blocked from resolving until the call ends. This prevents merging mid-call and confusing the caller's session.
• Once a resolution is resolved or expired, it can't be resolved again.

Expiring an anonymous member

Sometimes a caller is genuinely unknown and shouldn't be promoted to a real member — wrong-number calls, spam, one-off inquiries you don't need to track, etc. In that case, expire them instead of resolving:

1. Find the anonymous member in the Anonymous tab
2. Click Expire
3. Optionally add a note
4. Confirm

Expiring archives the anonymous member without merging anywhere. Their chats and messages are kept for audit purposes but are no longer attached to a live contact. The resolution record flips to expired.

Expiring is the right tool for keeping your member list clean. Letting anonymous members pile up unresolved makes it harder to find real contacts and clutters the member count in dashboards.

Tips for working through the queue

• Process the queue regularly. Anonymous members accumulate over time, especially in high-volume voice workspaces. A weekly review keeps things tidy.
• Resolve before you call back. If a member of your team needs to follow up with an unknown caller, resolve the anonymous record to a real member first so the outbound call attaches to the right contact.
• Use notes liberally. The notes field is a free-text audit trail — "Wrong number, expired" or "Resolved to Alice (matched on phone)" makes the resolution history meaningful months later.

Test Members

What they are

Test members are member records you create on purpose for non-production use:

• Automated testing — exercise workflows, chats, and forms in your CI suite without touching real contacts.
• Demos — show off your workspace to a prospect or stakeholder without exposing real customer data.
• Sandboxing — let new team members experiment with features risk-free.
• Training — give operators or AI agents safe targets to practice with.
• Load testing — generate synthetic traffic without billing implications.

Test members behave like regular members in most ways — they appear in chats, can be assigned to workflows, can have form data and labels — with three key differences:

Because test members aren't synced to an Account, you can edit their phone, email, or other contact info freely without worrying about side effects on a real person's identity.

Creating a test member

1. Go to People → Members
2. Click the Test Members tab
3. Click Add Member
4. Fill in name, contact info, role, and any form data you need for the scenario
5. Save

The member is flagged with a flask icon and slotted into the Test Members tab. You can give a test member any role — including admin roles — but they can't actually log in regardless, so the role only governs what your AI agents and workflows are allowed to do on their behalf.

What test members can and can't do

• ✅ Receive chats, messages, and inbound voice/SMS
• ✅ Be assigned to workflows
• ✅ Hold form data, labels, and qualifications
• ✅ Be edited, archived, and deleted freely
• ❌ Log into the workspace
• ❌ Be counted toward billing thresholds
• ❌ Be set as an organization owner

Cleaning up

Test members linger forever unless you remove them. When a test scenario or demo is finished, archive the test members you created so they don't clutter future imports or reports.

Frequently asked questions

Are anonymous and test members billed? No. Both types are excluded from member-based billing. Only regular members count.

Can anonymous members access PHI? Anonymous members can hold workspace data — including PHI — through their chats and form submissions, but only inside that workspace. They have no login, no Account record, and no cross-workspace presence. Once you resolve an anonymous member into a real one, that data moves with them.

Can I bulk-import test members from CSV? Yes. The CSV import flow on the Import/Export tab supports test members through the member_type column. See Importing Members for the full format reference.

What if my team accidentally resolves an anonymous member to the wrong contact? Resolutions are logged in the audit trail. Reach out to support if you need to reverse one — there's no self-serve "undo" because resolution merges data and the safe rollback path depends on what was merged.

How long do unresolved anonymous members stick around? Forever, by default. There's no automatic expiry today; expiring is a deliberate, audited action you take from the Anonymous tab.

Related

• Members — the main member list, roles, and credentials
• Importing Members — bulk-create members (including test members) from CSV
• Channels — phone, SMS, and email setup that drives anonymous member creation