---
title: "Trigger a Twilio call for urgent reports"
description: "Turn an urgent maintenance report into a Twilio voice call that reads the location and issue out to the engineer on the rota phone."
url: "https://www.formformform.com/automations/twilio-on-call-voice-escalation"
type: static
generatedAt: "2026-08-23T18:56:58.727Z"
---
![Twilio logo](/logos/integrations/twilio.png)

# Call the on-call engineer when an urgent report comes in

A high-priority maintenance report rings the on-call engineer and reads out the location, category and issue.

When this happens

New submission on your incident or maintenance report form

Do this

Make a Twilio voice call to the on-call engineer reading out the issue summary

One-directional. A submission triggers the action — nothing is written back into your form.

Some reports cannot wait in a queue. A failed lift, a burst pipe, a door that will not lock — these arrive on the same form as a flickering bulb, and email flattens the difference.

A ringing phone does not. Facilities and ops teams filter on the priority the reporter chose, and let anything urgent trigger a real call to whoever is holding the rota phone. The call reads out where, what, and who to ring back, which is enough to get someone moving before a laptop is open.

## Setting it up

1.  1
    
    Keep Priority on the maintenance form as a fixed set of choices rather than free text — a filter cannot reliably match typed-in urgency.
    
2.  2
    
    In Zapier, trigger on formformform and New Submission for the maintenance report form.
    
3.  3
    
    Add a Zapier Filter immediately after the trigger that continues only when Priority exactly matches your top option.
    
4.  4
    
    Add Twilio as the action and choose Make Call rather than Send SMS.
    
5.  5
    
    Hard-code the rota number in the To field and use a Twilio number your engineers have saved, so the call is not screened as spam at two in the morning.
    
6.  6
    
    Write the spoken message in order: Location / Unit first, then Issue Category, then a trimmed Describe the Issue.
    
7.  7
    
    End the script with Requester Name and Phone Number so the engineer has someone to ring back from the van.
    
8.  8
    
    Add a Twilio Send SMS action after the call carrying the same summary in text, then test it on your own phone before turning the Zap on.
    

## What maps where

Using the [Maintenance Request Form](https://www.formformform.com/templates/maintenance-request-form) as the starting point. These are its real fields — swap in your own and the mapping works the same way.

Form field

Twilio

Priority

The Zapier Filter condition that decides whether a call is placed

Location / Unit

Read out first so the engineer knows where to go

Issue Category

Read out in the spoken summary

Describe the Issue

Read aloud by Twilio text-to-speech, trimmed to a sentence or two

Requester Name

Named at the end of the call

Phone Number

Read out as the callback number, and repeated in the follow-up SMS

## Variations worth knowing

Escalate to a call only out of hours

Add a second Zapier Filter on the submission time. Inside working hours, route the same urgent report to Send SMS, since somebody is already at a desk. Outside them, let it ring the rota phone. One form, two thresholds for interrupting a person.

Try a backup number after a few minutes

Add a Zapier Delay of five minutes and a second Make Call action aimed at the deputy. It is blunt — both engineers may end up called for the same fault — which is still better than a flooded plant room going unattended until morning.

## If something isn't arriving

The call connects but the spoken summary is hard to follow

Text-to-speech reads punctuation, unit codes and abbreviations badly. Trim Describe the Issue with a Zapier Formatter, spell out codes like B2-04 as B two zero four, and add full stops so the voice pauses. Test with the longest answer you have on file.

Every report triggers a call, including the trivial ones

Check the Filter sits directly after the trigger, not after the Twilio step, and that it uses exactly matches on Priority rather than contains. A contains rule will happily pass Not urgent when you are looking for Urgent.

## Frequently asked questions

What happens if the engineer does not pick up?

Twilio logs the call as no-answer and the Zap finishes there. Nothing retries by itself and nothing is written back into the report. Add a delay and a second call to a deputy, or send the SMS afterwards so the summary is waiting when they look.

Can we use this for genuine emergencies?

Treat it as an internal escalation, not an emergency service. The chain depends on Zapier, Twilio and a mobile signal all working at once. Put your emergency number on the form itself and tell reporters to ring it whenever someone is at risk.

Does the on-call engineer need a login to act on this?

No. The call carries the location, the category and a callback number, which is usually enough to set off. A login only matters when they want the rest of the answers — the access window, whether entry is permitted, the reporter's email.

## Related automations

-   [Text a ticket acknowledgement back to whoever reported the problem](https://www.formformform.com/automations/twilio-ticket-received-reply)
    
    Anyone who files a help desk ticket gets a text back with the subject they wrote and a reference to quote.
    
-   [Text an appointment confirmation the moment someone books](https://www.formformform.com/automations/twilio-booking-confirmation-text)
    
    A submitted appointment request triggers a text confirming the service, date and time before the client closes the tab.
    
-   [Text registrants the venue details straight after they sign up](https://www.formformform.com/automations/twilio-event-logistics-text)
    
    New registrants receive the door, start time and check-in link by text within seconds of submitting the form.
    
-   [Text the assigned rep the moment a demo request lands](https://www.formformform.com/automations/twilio-lead-alert-to-rep)
    
    Every demo request buzzes the assigned rep's phone with the lead's name, company and the problem they described.
    
-   [Text the buyer and the packing bench when an order comes in](https://www.formformform.com/automations/twilio-order-placed-text)
    
    One submission sends the buyer a confirmation text and the packing bench a separate message with the picking details.
    
-   [Alert a recruiter to every new application](https://www.formformform.com/automations/whatsapp-candidate-alert-to-recruiter)
    
    The recruiter gets a nudge for every applicant, with enough to decide who to call first.
    

-   [All Twilio integration details →](https://www.formformform.com/integrations/twilio)
-   [Start from the Maintenance Request Form →](https://www.formformform.com/templates/maintenance-request-form)
-   [Browse every automation →](https://www.formformform.com/automations)

## Build the form first

The automation needs somewhere to fire from. Publish a form, connect it once, and every submission from then on runs this flow.

[Start free](https://app.formformform.com/register?utm_source=landing&utm_medium=bottom&utm_campaign=automations&utm_content=twilio-on-call-voice-escalation)