Connect Oscar to Housecall Pro
Oscar answers your calls and books jobs into your arrival windows. Connect Housecall Pro and he checks your team’s Housecall Pro schedule before he offers a time, then puts every job he books into Housecall Pro as a scheduled job, and every estimate visit as a scheduled estimate.
Before you start
- Housecall Pro’s MAX plan. API keys and webhooks are only available on MAX; on Basic and Essentials the API page shows “Not available”.
- An admin login for Housecall Pro, to create the API key.
- An Oscar account, signed in as the owner or an admin (the people who can change the Schedule).
- Your techs set up as employees in Housecall Pro, so Oscar can see whose jobs are whose.
Make an API key in Housecall Pro
- In Housecall Pro, open My Apps and choose API (listed as API Key Management).
- Click Generate new API key.
- Name it Oscar so you know who uses it, set permissions to Full access and click Generate key.
- Copy the key. Keep it private: anyone with it can read and change your Housecall Pro data.
Full access is needed because Oscar creates customers, jobs and estimates. A read-only key can’t create them.
Connect in Oscar
- In Oscar, open Schedule from the left menu and scroll to Calendars.
- On the Housecall Pro card, paste the key and click Connect. Oscar checks it with Housecall Pro and shows your company name.
- Tick the employees whose jobs should take a place in a window. Leave out office staff who never go out on jobs.
- For each tech who also has an Oscar login, choose Same as …. Jobs Oscar books for that tech are then dispatched to them in Housecall Pro.
- Click Save team. The card shows Connected and the first sync runs straight away. Upcoming bookings already in Oscar are sent across too.
Instant updates (optional)
Oscar reads your Housecall Pro schedule every 15 minutes. To pick up changes the moment the office makes them:
- On Oscar’s Housecall Pro card, open Instant updates and click Copy.
- In Housecall Pro, open My Apps → Webhooks, turn it on and paste the URL as the destination.
The URL is private to your business. If it ever leaks, disconnect and reconnect in Oscar to get a new one.
Check it works
- On Oscar’s Schedule page, click an open place in any window next week and book a job for yourself, with your own phone number and a full address including the ZIP code.
- Within a minute it appears on Housecall Pro’s schedule, tagged Oscar, with a note carrying the issue and phone number. In Oscar, click the job: the panel says In Housecall Pro as a job.
- Move it to another window in Oscar and the job moves in Housecall Pro. Cancel it in Oscar and the job is taken off the schedule, with a note saying who cancelled.
- To check busy times, schedule a job in Housecall Pro for one of your picked employees and click Sync now. That window shows one place fewer.
Practice calls on Oscar’s Test page never reach Housecall Pro, so test with a job you book on the Schedule page.
What syncs
| Housecall Pro → Oscar | Scheduled and in-progress jobs, estimates and events for the employees you picked, for the next 21 days. Each one takes a place in the window it overlaps. Declined estimates don’t count. |
|---|---|
| Oscar → Housecall Pro, new booking | A scheduled job in the arrival window, dispatched to the linked tech, tagged Oscar. An estimate visit becomes a scheduled estimate instead. The note carries the caller’s issue, phone number, access notes, a call summary and a link to the call in Oscar. Oscar turns off Housecall Pro’s customer notifications for schedule changes he makes, and for customers he adds. |
| Customers | If a Housecall Pro customer already has the caller’s phone number, Oscar uses that customer and the matching address. Otherwise he adds a new customer, tagged Oscar. |
| Addresses | Housecall Pro only saves complete addresses. If the caller gives a street and ZIP code, Oscar fills in your business’s city and state when they’re missing. Without a ZIP code the address goes in the job note instead. |
| Moves | Moving a booking on Oscar’s Schedule page reschedules the job or estimate. When a caller rings back to move their booking, Oscar cancels the old one and books the new time. |
| Cancellations | Housecall Pro doesn’t let apps delete or cancel jobs, so Oscar takes a cancelled job off the schedule (it shows as needing scheduling) and declines a cancelled estimate, each with a note saying why. Archive or delete them in Housecall Pro if you like. |
| Estimates and employees | Housecall Pro won’t schedule an estimate with nobody on it. If the booked tech isn’t linked, Oscar assigns the estimate to the first person in your team list. |
| Not synced | Line items, invoices and payments. Changing a job’s time in Housecall Pro doesn’t move the booking in Oscar; move it in Oscar instead. |
If something’s wrong
- “Housecall Pro stopped accepting Oscar’s API key”. The key was deleted, or the account left the MAX plan. Make a new key and paste it on the Housecall Pro card. Oscar also texts the owner when this happens.
- “Housecall Pro didn’t accept that key” when connecting. Copy the key again from My Apps → API, with no spaces, and check the account is on MAX.
- A job says “Not added yet, retrying”. Housecall Pro didn’t accept it. Oscar retries for about 20 minutes, then texts the owner. The booking still stands in Oscar.
- Oscar offers a time when a tech is out. Check they’re ticked under Change team and that the job is assigned to them in Housecall Pro, then click Sync now.
Disconnect
On Oscar’s Schedule page, click Disconnect on the Housecall Pro card. Oscar forgets the key and clears the busy times it copied. Then delete the key in Housecall Pro under My Apps → API, and turn off the Webhooks app if you set it up. Jobs Oscar already created stay in Housecall Pro.
Need a hand?
Signed in to Oscar? Ask Oscar from the left menu, or book a free 20-minute setup call from the Help page and we’ll connect it with you. Otherwise contact us or email [email protected]. What Oscar stores and why is in the privacy policy.