Voice & SMS paging

What this covers

HowlOps can page an on-call responder by phone call and SMS as escalation steps, on top of email and chat. This page explains which numbers the alerts come from, what you can do during a call, and how to verify it works.

Add and verify phone numbers

Open Settings → Profile → Phone numbers. Choose the country first; HowlOps shows its flag and international calling prefix separately, so you only enter the national part of the number. Send and confirm the six-digit SMS code.

You can keep more than one verified number (for example, work and personal):

• the first verified number becomes Primary and is assigned automatically to empty SMS and voice steps;
• in Settings → Notifications → Chain, each SMS or voice step has a selector containing only your verified numbers;
• changing one step does not change the others;
• deleting a number reassigns steps to another verified number when possible.

An SMS or voice step cannot be enabled with arbitrary free text or another member's number. At least one verified personal number is required.

Which numbers we call and text from

Voice calls and SMS are delivered through HowlOps's Twilio number. The number you see as the caller ID / sender is the workspace's configured From number.

• Add it to your contacts as "HowlOps Alerts" so a 3 a.m. page doesn't look like spam and isn't silenced by Do-Not-Disturb.
• The exact number is shown when you verify your phone while adding a Voice or SMS channel — it's the number that places the verification call/text, and it's the same one used for real alerts.
• Voice and SMS usually share one number, but an operator can set a separate voice caller-ID. If you've allow-listed one number and calls arrive from another, check with your workspace admin.

Tip: if you use a call-screening app, allow-list the HowlOps number so paging calls always ring through.

Acknowledge, close, escalate or silence from a call

Incident voice calls are interactive. After the spoken alert, HowlOps asks you to press a key, using the same keypad layout as Opsgenie:

Press	Action
1	Read the description again — replays the alert
2	Close the incident — marks it resolved
3	Acknowledge the incident — stops the escalation immediately
4	Escalate now to the next responder
5	Silence for 30 minutes

The action applies to the exact incident the call is about — no app, login or callback needed. If you don't press anything, the escalation policy keeps running and pages the next step.

Acknowledge from a text

You can also reply to an alert SMS to acknowledge it, the same idea as pressing 3 on a call. Text back ACK or ACKNOWLEDGE and HowlOps matches your phone number to your user account, acknowledges the freshest open incident you're allowed to see, and stops its escalation. You'll get a short SMS back confirming it worked.

Only a phone number that's mapped to a known HowlOps user can acknowledge this way. If someone else texts the alert number, they won't get a reply.

STOP and START still work as usual to opt out of and back into SMS alerts.

SMS alerts

Beyond the ACK reply above, SMS messages are notify-only: you receive the alert text, but other replies don't change the incident. Use the voice call (above), the chat buttons (Slack / Discord / Telegram), or the web app for anything other than acknowledging.

Quiet hours and limits

• Non-critical SMS can be suppressed during your configured quiet hours; critical alerts always go through.
• SMS and voice are metered on the On-call plan. Once you reach your included allotment, alerts stop on those channels and escalation moves to the next channel — unless you've enabled overage billing.

Send a test (admins)

A workspace admin can confirm the integration end to end:

1. Open Admin → Settings → Notifications.
2. Under SMS Provider enter a phone number and click Send Test SMS.
3. Under Voice Provider enter a phone number and click Place Test Call.

Both use the live, resolved Twilio credentials (environment first, then the values entered in the admin UI), so a successful test means real alerts will deliver too.

Platform administrators can also use Admin → Notification log to filter SMS and voice deliveries and compare success/failure rates by destination country and calling prefix. Individual phone numbers remain masked in that view.