Switching to DirectOS from Jobber, Housecall Pro or another app

Most of a switch takes an afternoon. The one thing to plan is your phone number, so customers aren’t confused.

1. Bring your customers

Export your customers (and properties, if your old app allows it) as a spreadsheet, then use Import Data (the + button in the DirectOS app). DirectOS matches columns like name, phone, email and address for you and shows what it will add before anything is saved.

2. Decide what happens to your phone number

DirectOS texts and calls customers from a business number. Most businesses just get a new one from DirectOS: in the app, go to Settings › Texting › Get a Business Number. We pick a local number and register it with the carriers for you — no Twilio account needed.

The only reason to do anything else is to keep a number your customers already know. Find your situation:

• You have a business line or VoIP number customers know (phone company, RingCentral, Grasshopper, Dialpad, Google Voice…): get a new DirectOS number and tell customers once with Settings › Texting › Announce New Number. To keep the same number instead, move (“port”) it into a Twilio account of your own and connect that in Settings › Texting. Porting usually takes 1–4 weeks. Don’t cancel your old service until the move is finished, or the number can be lost.
• A landline you want to keep with your phone company: with your own Twilio account, Twilio Hosted SMS adds texting to it while calls stay where they are. Not every number qualifies.
• The texting number that came with Jobber, Housecall Pro or similar: many of these apps keep the number. Ask their support whether they’ll release (port out) the number before you cancel. If they won’t, get a DirectOS number and use Announce New Number to tell customers once.
• Your personal cell: keep it personal and get a DirectOS business number. On Direct Pro and up, business calls can still ring your cell, and you can call customers from the business number.

3. Register for business texting

US carriers require every business texting from a local number to register (A2P 10DLC). With a DirectOS number, you fill out one short form in the app and we handle the rest; approval usually takes a few days. (If you connect your own Twilio account instead, you register in Twilio yourself.) Either way, start early — texts may be blocked until approval is done.

4. Overlap for a week or two

Keep your old app running briefly so a reply to an old number isn’t missed. Send any open invoices from DirectOS so customers pay through your own connected Stripe account.

Need a hand?

Email support@directos.app and we’ll walk you through it.