Housecall Pro integration
Answered calls land on your Housecall Pro calendar, ready to dispatch.
HVAC Reception answers while your technicians are on jobs. It finds the customer and service address, writes a job or estimate with your job types and tags, and places it in an open arrival window on the right technician’s schedule. The caller’s details stay in private notes. The caller hears “you’re booked” only after Housecall Pro shows the job, and gets one confirmation text, never two.
It’s 9:40 PM and your lead tech is still at a no-heat call across town. Three calls went to voicemail since six. Tomorrow morning someone listens to them, types each caller into Housecall Pro, and books one into a window that an online booking took overnight. A gate code ends up in the job description and prints on the invoice. The new-system caller from dinnertime has already booked someone else’s estimate.
Call-to-Housecall Pro preview
Pick a call and watch it become a Housecall Pro job.
Field map
| From the call | Housecall Pro | Status |
|---|
Dispatch calendar · Sample
What the homeowner receives
Operation trail
Your rules, per call type
Book what should be booked. Hand dispatch the rest.
In setup you choose what each kind of call becomes in Housecall Pro, and you can change it at any time. A change applies to new calls; a call already being written finishes under the rule it started with.
| Call type | Suggested destination | What is written | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| No heat, no cooling, noisy unit | Job with an arrival window | Customer, service address, job with job type and tags, window on a technician’s schedule, private note | The caller wants a time now, and the repair is diagnosed on site |
| Recent install stopped working | Callback job with an arrival window | Job tagged Callback and Warranty, private note linking the original install job | The right tech goes back, and nobody invoices a no-charge visit |
| Replacement or new system | Estimate with an appointment | Customer, address, estimate with the equipment and budget notes, appointment for your estimator | The next step is building options, so the estimate carries what the caller already said |
| Property managers, commercial, anything unusual | Unscheduled job for dispatch | Customer, the right address, job with tags and the preferred window in the private note | Dispatch places these on the calendar by hand |
| Gas smell, CO alarm, no heat with vulnerable occupants | Escalate, then record | Your on-call escalation runs first; then an unscheduled job records the call and the escalation outcome | Safety calls reach a person before any paperwork |
Private stays private
Customer-facing fields get a clean line. Everything else goes to private notes.
Housecall Pro sends estimates, invoices and appointment messages to your customers. HVAC Reception writes a tidy service line to anything a customer can see. The rest, from the caller’s own words to the lockbox code and tenant phone number, stays where only your team looks.
| Captured on the call | Housecall Pro field | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Name, mobile number, email | Customer | Your team; matched before anything is created |
| Service address | Customer service address | Customer and technician |
| What the job is | Job type and a clean description | Customer, on messages and documents |
| What they said, in their words | Private note | Your team only |
| Equipment type and age | Your job field for equipment | Your team; falls back to the private note if the field is removed |
| After hours, callback, member, tenant on site | Tags | Your team; drives filters and reports |
| How they found you | Lead source | Your team; mapped from the number dialed or what they said |
| Chosen window and technician | Schedule and assigned employee | Customer and technician |
| Gate or lockbox code, pets, tenant contact, summary, recording link | Private note | Your team only; added after the job reads back |
One confirmation text per booked call
Choose who texts the customer, never both.
| Setting | Who sends the confirmation | When | If the job isn’t scheduled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housecall Pro sends | Your existing Housecall Pro notifications, with your wording and reminders. The job is written with its confirmation held. | Released right after the job reads back at its final window | No text; Housecall Pro has nothing to confirm |
| HVAC Reception texts | HVAC Reception, from your business number. Housecall Pro’s confirmation is turned off for that job. | Right after read-back, while the caller may still be on the line | “We have your request” text, never a time |
| No text | Nobody; the caller hears the time on the call | — | — |
Setup checks what your Housecall Pro connection can do. If it can’t hold Housecall Pro’s confirmation and release it later, “Housecall Pro sends” isn’t offered. If it can’t hold the confirmation at all, setup asks you to switch off Housecall Pro’s automatic appointment confirmation or to keep those call types as unscheduled jobs. Either way, no text reaches the customer before the job reads back.
The confirmation boundary
“You’re booked” means Housecall Pro shows the job.
- Save the call firstThe request is stored in HVAC Reception with its own ID before Housecall Pro is touched.
- Customer and addressMatched on mobile number and address; unclear matches wait for the office.
- Check the window againThe calendar is read seconds before writing, so online bookings and dispatch moves are seen.
- Write the job once, quietlyEach write carries an idempotency key, so a retry can’t create a second job. Housecall Pro’s confirmation is held.
- Read backThe job or estimate is on the technician’s schedule, and nothing else fills that window. Then the private note is added.
- Then confirmThe caller hears the window, and the one text goes out, only after the read-back, whichever system sends it.
When something goes wrong
Every failure leaves a request your office can finish.
| Situation | What the caller hears | What your office sees | Recovery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Window taken by an online booking or a dispatch move | Two fresh windows to choose from | Customer ready, no job until the caller chooses | Nothing written to the lost window; alternatives read live |
| Housecall Pro times out after the write | Confirmation once the job is found | One job, marked reconciled; one text | Search by idempotency key before any retry |
| Two customers share the phone number | The office will confirm the details and time | “Choose the customer” on the request | Pick one (or merge them in Housecall Pro); the job writes with the original details |
| Call drops and the caller rings straight back | Asked to confirm it’s the same problem, then picks up where it stopped | One request with both calls attached | Matched on address and problem plus the caller’s yes, never on phone number alone |
| Session expired or MFA needed | The office will confirm with them | Connector health: “Sign in again” | Queued operations resume after reconnecting |
| The job type for this call type was removed | The office will confirm the time with them; no time is promised | “Choose a job type” on each held request for that call type; connector health: “Mapping needs attention” | Nothing is written. After you pick a job type, the request resumes with its original details and key. |
| A tag, lead source or job field was renamed or removed | No change | Connector health: “Mapping needs attention”, naming the item | The job is still written, and the value goes to the private note. Remap it, and later calls use the field again. |
| Housecall Pro can’t hold its confirmation on your connection | No change | Setup offers HVAC Reception’s text or no text, or asks you to switch off automatic confirmations | No setting can send a text before read-back, or send two |
| Automatic confirmations switched back on in Housecall Pro | The office will confirm the time with them | Held request: “Turn off automatic confirmations or change the sender” | Nothing is written until the setting matches, then the request resumes with its original key |
| Another job lands in the same window between the re-check and the write | Not booked yet. The same window with another free technician, or two fresh windows. | One unconfirmed job, with no text sent | The same job is reassigned or moved and read back again, never duplicated. If the caller can’t choose, it goes to unscheduled jobs for you to place. |
| Housecall Pro screen changed (browser route) | The office will confirm with them | Connector health: “Layout changed” | Writes pause; held requests retry with original details after repair |
| Rate limit reached | No change | Operation shows “retrying” | Backs off and retries with the same key |
Setup
Connect once. Decide what callers can book.
- Connect your Housecall Pro account and set the timezone and service area callers can book in.
- Pick a destination per call type: job with a window, estimate with an appointment, unscheduled job, or escalate first.
- Map job types, tags, lead sources and the job field for equipment.
- Choose bookable windows and technicians per call type, including who runs estimates.
- Pick the confirmation sender, then preview on sample calls and place a test call to check the customer, job and private note in Housecall Pro.
Connector health Example
- ● Housecall Pro connected Timezone: America/Chicago
- ● 5 of 5 call types mapped Repair, Callback, Replacement, Property manager, Safety
- ● 1 request needs a customer choice Two customers share a mobile number
- ● Confirmation sender: Housecall Pro Held on each job until it reads back
Repair actions appear here as soon as a session expires or a mapped field changes.
How we connect
One booking contract, whichever route your account supports.
- Housecall Pro APIOn plans with API access, a key you issue lets HVAC Reception read customers and your calendar and write jobs, estimates and notes.
- Workflow adapterBuilt around the requests your authorized Housecall Pro workflow already makes, then versioned and contract-tested.
- Secured browser sessionAn isolated signed-in session performs the same steps your office would, and screenshots any failure.
- Vendor-assisted setupAccess arranged together with Housecall Pro when your account needs it.
Whichever route carries the data, the same rules apply: save first, match before creating, re-check before booking, and read back before confirming or texting.
See the rest of the call
From the first ring to a job on your Housecall Pro calendar.
Explore the call inbox and routing playground in the demo. Then come back and run the preview with the calls your office gets most.
Frequently asked questions
Does every call become a scheduled job in Housecall Pro?
Only the call types you open to booking. Repairs can become a job with an arrival window, replacement calls an estimate with an appointment, and anything dispatch prefers to place an unscheduled job with the caller’s preferred window in the private note. Safety calls run your escalation rules first and are then recorded as an unscheduled job.
Will my customer get two confirmation texts?
No. You choose one sender per call type: Housecall Pro’s own notifications or a text from HVAC Reception. Either way the job is written with Housecall Pro’s confirmation held, and the one text goes out only after the job reads back at its final window. Housecall Pro’s confirmation is released, or HVAC Reception sends its own. If your Housecall Pro connection can’t hold and release its confirmation, setup offers HVAC Reception’s text or no text. A timeout that is reconciled still leaves one job and one text.
Can customers see what the caller told us?
Customer-facing fields receive a clean service line, such as “Furnace repair: diagnose short cycling”. The caller’s own words, gate or lockbox codes, tenant phone numbers and the call summary go to the job’s private note, so they never appear on an estimate, invoice or customer message.
How are duplicate customers avoided?
HVAC Reception searches customers by mobile number and service address before creating anything. A clear match is reused, and a new service address for a known customer is added to that customer. When two records share the phone and the address doesn’t settle it, the job waits for your office to choose instead of guessing.
What happens if someone books the same window online during the call?
The window is read again from your Housecall Pro calendar seconds before the job is written. If an online booking took it, nothing is written to that window and the caller picks from two fresh windows. The caller hears “you’re booked” only after the new job reads back.
How do warranty callbacks show up?
A caller who mentions a recent install is matched to their existing customer, and the new job gets your Callback and Warranty tags. Its private note links the original install job, so dispatch sends the right technician and the office doesn’t invoice a no-charge visit.
How do you connect to Housecall Pro?
Through the route your account supports best: the Housecall Pro API on plans that include API access, an adapter built around your authorized Housecall Pro workflow, a secured browser session, or setup coordinated with Housecall Pro. The matching, window check and read-back rules are the same whichever route carries the data.