CaughtLeads

Connect Housecall Pro

Bookings into Job Inbox, finished jobs back as held revenue.

On this page

Connect Housecall Pro and every booking your receptionist takes lands in your Job Inbox by itself. When the job is completed or paid, its job total comes back to us, and the appointment is marked held with that amount. No retyping, and no guessing.

In beta

Built on Housecall Pro’s published API. No customer account has run on it yet, so tell us if anything looks off.

This needs the Housecall Pro MAX plan

Housecall Pro only switches on its API for accounts on the MAX plan. If you are on a lower plan there is no API Key Management screen to open, and this connection cannot be made. You can still send bookings to Housecall Pro through your own Zapier account instead.

Before you start

  • A Housecall Pro account on the MAX plan.
  • Admin access in Housecall Pro. A regular user cannot create an API key.
  • Your CaughtLeads login, with owner or admin access.
  • About five minutes.

Step 1: Create an API key in Housecall Pro

The key is how we prove to Housecall Pro that we are allowed to create jobs for you. It is made inside Housecall Pro, not here.

  1. 1

    Sign in to Housecall Pro as an admin

    A regular user account cannot reach the key screen.

  2. 2

    Open My Apps, then All Apps

    Scroll the All apps page, or use the search bar, to find API Key Management. If it is not there, the account is not on the MAX plan, and nothing below will work until it is.

  3. 3

    Click Generate API Key

    Give the key a Name you will recognise later, such as CaughtLeads. Under Permissions choose Full access, not Read-only, then click Generate key. A read-only key cannot create bookings.

  4. 4

    Copy the key

    Paste it somewhere safe before you leave the page, then bring it back here.

What the screen looks like

Housecall Pro’s own walkthrough, with their screenshots, is at help.housecallpro.com. We link to theirs rather than copy it, so you are always looking at the current screen rather than one we photographed months ago.

Treat the key like a password

Anyone holding this key can read and write jobs in your Housecall Pro account. Do not email it, and do not paste it into a chat. If you think it has leaked, delete it in Housecall Pro and make a new one; the old one stops working immediately.

Step 2: Paste the key into CaughtLeads

Open Connections in the sidebar. The Housecall Pro card near the bottom shows the same four steps, and what we write and read back.

The Housecall Pro connection card in CaughtLeads, expanded to show its four setup steps
Connections, Housecall Pro. The card tells you exactly what we write and what comes back.
  1. 1

    Scroll to Integrations and press Add integration

    It is at the bottom of the Connections page.

  2. 2

    Choose Housecall Pro and paste your key

    Check there is no stray space on the end of what you pasted.

  3. 3

    Connect

    We check the key with Housecall Pro before storing it, so a wrong key fails here and now, rather than silently on your first real call.

The Add an integration dialog with Housecall Pro (beta) chosen, showing the API key field and the optional webhook signing secret
Choose Housecall Pro (beta) under Send to. The key goes in the middle field.

You can do step 3 now or later

This dialog also has a Webhook signing secret field. It is optional here. If you already have the secret you can paste it now; otherwise leave it empty, connect, and add it afterwards as described below.

Once it saves, the card turns green. From that moment, every booking goes into Job Inbox as it happens.

Step 3: Send finished jobs back

Bookings flowing in is half of it. The other half is Housecall Pro telling us when a job was actually done, so a booked appointment becomes a held one with a real dollar figure against it.

Until this is set up, the Housecall Pro row in your integrations list says Add the webhook to get finished jobs back. The key icon on that row opens Housecall Pro settings, which shows your webhook URL and has a field for the signing secret Housecall Pro will give you.

  1. 1

    Open Housecall Pro settings and copy the webhook URL

    Click the key icon on the Housecall Pro row and copy the Webhook URL. Keep this box open, or come back to it after the next two steps.

  2. 2

    Turn on Webhooks in Housecall Pro

    Go to My Apps, then All Apps, open the All apps tab and choose the Webhooks app. Use the toggle at the top right to enable it and set it to Active. Like the API key, this is MAX plan only.

  3. 3

    Paste the URL and choose the events

    Put your job results URL in the Webhook URL field, enable the job events you want to subscribe to, and click Save. Housecall Pro then shows you a signing secret.

  4. 4

    Paste the signing secret into CaughtLeads

    Back in Housecall Pro settings, paste it into Webhook signing secret and click Save. The warning on the row goes away.

  5. 5

    Finish a test job

    Complete a small job in Housecall Pro, then check the booking in Attribution. It should move from booked to held with that job’s total.

What comes back, and what it does

Completed or paid jobs return with their job total, and cancelled jobs return as cancelled. A completed or paid job with a total marks that booking held for exactly that amount. Whatever job total Housecall Pro sends is what we count, never an estimate taken on the phone.

What a booking looks like in Job Inbox

Each booking arrives as a lead in Job Inbox, attached to the caller’s customer record. We match on phone number, and create the customer if there is no match. The lead carries the requested time, the service address and a short summary of the call.

Your office turns that lead into a job or an estimate the way it always has. We do not put anything on your dispatch board by itself.

If something does not work

There is no API Key Management screen

You are not on the MAX plan, or you are not signed in as an admin. Check both before contacting support.

The key was rejected when I saved it

Three usual causes: the key was copied with a space on the end, the key is read-only rather than full access, or it was deleted in Housecall Pro after you copied it. Make a fresh key and paste it again.

Bookings arrive but finished jobs never come back

Step 3 is incomplete. Check three things in order: the Webhooks app in Housecall Pro is toggled on and set to Active, the job results URL is in its Webhook URL field, and the job events you care about are enabled and saved. Until that is done, bookings still arrive normally; they simply never move from booked to held.

A booking went to the wrong customer

We match on the caller’s phone number. If two customer records share a number, or the number is stored in an unusual format, the match can land on the wrong one. Tidy the duplicate in Housecall Pro and the next booking will match correctly.

Read this next

Send Bookings to Your Field-Service Software

The reference page for all three systems.

Booked and Held Jobs

What held means, and where the dollar figure comes from.

Integrations

Webhooks, Slack and the other tools you can connect.