Before your tenants hear your assistant, you should. A handful of test calls takes about ten minutes and is the fastest way to find out whether your configuration matches the way you actually work.
Check three things first
You know your Doorkeep number. It is under Settings → Phone.
Nobody you expect to ring shows as Pending on your Call List. A staff contact confirms their number by text before Doorkeep can ring them, and a teammate with a login needs a verified phone number. Anyone not yet confirmed is skipped, so a transfer test will fail for a reason that has nothing to do with the assistant.
You have a second phone to call from. Some carriers will not complete a call from a phone to itself once forwarding is on, and calling from the number you are testing gives you a misleading result either way.
Ways to test from the app
On the Assistant page, click Test a call. The panel has four options:
Call your number. Your Doorkeep number, to call from your own phone. This is the only option that tests the whole chain, including ringing your Call List and sending texts.
Web test call. Talk to your assistant from your browser. Up to 5 a day. Transfers and texts are turned off, so it will not ring anyone.
Chat test. The same conversation over text, up to 20 a day. Chat tests do not use your knowledge base, so questions your facts would answer on a call go unanswered here. Transfers and texts are turned off.
Test SMS. Sends a sample text so you can see what arrives.
Test the path, then the behavior
There are two separate things that can go wrong, and it is worth checking them in order.
First, the path. Call your existing number from another phone. You should hear your Doorkeep assistant. If you hear your own voicemail instead, forwarding either is not set or your voicemail is picking up before it can trigger. If you hear ringing that never lands anywhere, check the number you entered when you set forwarding up.
Then the behavior. Once calls are arriving, the question stops being technical and starts being about judgment: does the assistant handle a routine call the way you would want, and does it ring your Call List when your setup says it should.
Four calls worth making
Run these as a tenant would, in plain language, without being unusually clear or helpful. Mumble a little. Give your unit number the way a real person would.
A routine message. Ask when the rent is due, or say you want to know the status of a request you put in last week. This is the bulk of your call volume. Listen for whether the message that reaches you is actually useful.
A property issue. A leak under the kitchen sink, no heat, a broken lock, or a lockout. This is where the assistant decides how urgent something is and what to do about it.
A leasing inquiry. Say you saw the listing and want to know if anything is available. Prospect calls are the ones that cost you money when they go unanswered.
A call that should ring your Call List. Describe something on your escalation list, like no heat or water coming through the ceiling, or a call type you set to ring. Confirm the right phone actually rings, and pay attention to what you hear before you are connected. Asking for the manager with no other reason is a general call, and general calls take a message rather than ring your list.
Also worth doing once: call from a number that is already in your contacts, and once from a number that is not. Doorkeep behaves differently when it recognizes the caller.
Do not test with real emergency wording
Words like fire, gas, smoke, or someone unconscious put the call on the fastest possible path, which is a redirect to 911. That is working as designed and it is not something you want to rehearse.
To test urgent handling safely, use a serious property issue instead: water coming through a ceiling, no heat overnight, a unit that will not lock. These are on the escalation list Doorkeep starts you with, so they ring your Call List without going anywhere near 911.
Then listen to what it did
A test call from your phone shows up in your call history exactly like a real one. For each call, check:
The recording. Does the assistant sound like your company? This is the part your tenants judge you on.
The transcript. Did it hear the name, the unit number, and the address correctly?
The summary. If you read only this at 7am, would you know what to do?
The caller. Does it show the real caller's number, or your forwarding number? If it shows your own number, caller ID is not passing through and Doorkeep cannot match calls to contacts.
The notification. Did the email or text arrive, to the right person, fast enough to be useful?
What to change based on what you hear
Almost everything you will want to adjust after a first round of testing falls into one of four places:
Too many calls reaching you. Narrow which situations ring your Call List, or tighten your call windows.
A call you wanted did not reach you. Widen those same settings, and confirm the ring order on your Call List puts the right person first.
The assistant did not know something it should have. Add it as a fact on the Knowledge page and turn it on. New facts land in review and do not reach a call until you do.
Names or unit numbers came through wrong. Worth telling us about. It helps us tune the assistant.
Make the change, then make the call again. A test call after every change is the whole point, and it costs you thirty seconds.
Good to know
A test call from your phone appears in your call history and triggers notifications like any other call. That is deliberate. You are testing the whole chain, not just the conversation.
Test again any time you change your Call List, your call windows, or your knowledge, and any time someone joins or leaves your team.
If you are not happy with what you hear, turn forwarding off, adjust, and turn it back on. Your calls go back to ringing exactly as they did before, and nothing in your Doorkeep account changes.