---
title: "Adding users without an email address"
description: "Give frontline staff an account without an email address: turn on the unique identifier, invite them, and hand over their access code yourself"
category: administration-security
section: users-and-access
tags: [admin]
type: Tutorial
lastUpdated: 2026-08-06
locale: en
canonical: https://support.talkspirit.com/en/administration-security/users-without-email
---

# Adding users without an email address


## Adding users without an email address

Some of the people you need on Talkspirit have no work email address: shop-floor staff, field technicians, seasonal and agency workers. You can still give them an account. Instead of an email address you give them a **unique identifier**, such as an employee number, and they sign in with that identifier and a password.

> **In summary:** turn on **Unique identifier (UID)** in Administration, invite the person with their identifier instead of an email address, then fetch their six-character access code from the classic interface and hand it over yourself. Talkspirit sends them nothing.

You need administrator rights for everything below.

## Turn on sign-up without an email

1. Open **Administration**.
2. Under **Security**, click **Authentication**.
3. Open the **Sign-up settings** tab.
4. Under **Sign-up methods**, switch on **Unique identifier (UID)**.

![The Sign-up settings tab in Talkspirit Administration, with the Unique identifier (UID) switch highlighted under Sign-up methods](/images/administration-security/users-without-email/01-authentication-signup-methods-uid.png)

Do this before you invite anyone. The **Invite** menu offers the without-email options whether or not the setting is on, but while it is off the identifier is thrown away and the invitation is refused.

This switch also puts the **Sign up** link on your sign-in page, which is how these people reach the form. And if you ever switch it back off, everyone who signs in with an identifier loses their only way in. Talkspirit asks you to type a confirmation first.

## Invite someone who has no email address

1. Open **Administration**, then **Invitations** under **People**.
2. Click **Invite**.
3. Under **Registration without email**, click **Add a member** or **Add a guest**.

![The Invite menu on the Invitations screen, showing the Registration by email and Registration without email groups](/images/administration-security/users-without-email/02-invite-menu-registration-without-email.png)

Fill in the **Unique identifier**: an employee number, a badge number, anything short that no one else in your organisation has. Letters, digits, full stops, hyphens and underscores are accepted, and Talkspirit stores the value in lower case. **First name** and **Last name** are optional, but without them the person is hard to recognise later. Use **Add another person** to invite several at once, choose the **Access scope**, then click **Send invitation**.

![The Invite a member dialog with a Unique identifier field instead of an email address field](/images/administration-security/users-without-email/03-invite-modal-unique-identifier.png)

Despite the button's wording, nothing leaves Talkspirit. The **Personal message** box is not delivered either, so do not put anything in it that the person needs to read.

To onboard a whole team at once, use **Bulk invite of member users** in the classic interface, which takes a spreadsheet with a `uid` column. The new **Invitations** screen has no bulk option here: the paste-a-list shortcut is offered on the email route only.

## Find and hand over the access code

Talkspirit generates a six-character **access code** the moment you create the invitation. The person needs it once, to sign up.

The new **Invitations** screen does not show access codes, so open the classic interface instead:

1. Go to `/#/l/dashboard/invitations` on your organisation's address.
2. Open the **Invitations without email** tab. It appears only once **Unique identifier (UID)** is on.
3. Click **See access code** on the row you want, or click **Download invitations (Excel format)** to get every code at once in a spreadsheet.

Then give the code to the person by whatever means already reaches them: on paper, by SMS, in person. Treat it as a credential, because anyone holding it can claim that account.

## How they sign in

The first time:

1. The person opens your organisation's address and clicks **Sign up**.
2. They type the access code into the same box that would take an email address. Talkspirit recognises it by its length.
3. The next screen shows their **Identifier**, written as the identifier you chose, a colon, and your organisation's short name, for example `470182:alpine`. Tell them to keep it.
4. They choose a password, and they are signed in.

From then on they sign in with that identifier and password, on the same form everyone else uses.

If someone forgets their identifier, they can read it back under **My identifier** in their own profile settings, and you can read it for them: the classic **Users** list shows it where an email address would otherwise be.

## What they cannot do

Everything in Talkspirit that reaches a person by email is unavailable to them:

- **No invitation email and no reminders.** The invitation exists, but nothing is sent and nothing is queued. **Resend invitation** on their row reports success and sends nothing.
- **No password reset.** They cannot use **Forgot password**, and **Send an invitation link** is greyed out on their row under **Users**. To get them back in, use **Fill a new password** on the same menu, tick **Require password change on next login**, and pass the password on yourself.
- **No notification emails** of any kind. Everything they need to see, they see in the app.
- **They are easy to lose track of.** In the new interface their **Email** column shows a dash on the **Invitations** list and nothing at all on the **Users** list, and their identifier is shown on neither. Go by the name you gave them.

If someone later gets a work address, add it with **Edit information** on their row under **Users**. An account can carry both an identifier and an email address, and from then on everything above works for them as it does for anyone else.

Going the other way needs the classic interface. To give an identifier to a member who already has an account, open their profile there and fill in **Unique identifier**.

## What's next?

- [Managing email invitations for new members](/administration-security/manage-email-invitations-for-new-members)
- [Inviting new users, members, or guests](/administration-security/inviting-new-users-members-or-guests)
- [Email technical requirements](/administration-security/email-technical-requirements)