Real-Time Call Data with the CDR API

Near-real-time call data changes what your phone system can do: leads surface while they are fresh, campaigns are monitored as they run, and costs are watched as they accumulate. The Simple Telecom CDR API makes your call records available within 1–2 minutes of each call completing and being priced — queried by service number and date range, returned as paginated JSON.

How the CDR API delivers near-real-time data

The CDR API endpoint GET /api/cdrs returns records as each call completes and is priced — a process that typically takes 1–2 minutes from the moment the call ends. Each record includes the call's start and end time, duration in seconds, the caller's number (source), the destination, and the cost in AUD. Authentication is via Bearer token, and responses are JSON.

To build a rolling near-real-time feed, query the endpoint on a schedule — every 5–15 minutes depending on your needs. Use start_date and end_date to focus on recent data, and compare cdr_id values against your database of previously processed records to identify new calls.

Integration patterns that work

Lead notifications. Poll the API every few minutes for new records, check each source_number against your CRM, and create a lead or append an activity accordingly — so even callers who left no message generate a follow-up.

Campaign monitoring. Assign a unique 1300 or 1800 number per campaign, query that number's records during the flight, and track call volume and average duration against expectations — adjusting within hours rather than at month end.

Cost monitoring. For toll-free traffic, where your business funds every call, poll costs per service number against daily budgets and alert on unusual patterns — bill-shock protection and anomaly detection (a number suddenly receiving many times its normal volume) fall out of the same polling loop.

Integration best practices

• Process idempotently. Use cdr_id as the unique key so restarts and retries never duplicate records.
• Paginate fully. Responses carry up to 100 records per page with a meta object for totals; loop until all pages are processed, and use the order parameter to sort by start time.
• Respect rate limiting. Monitor the X-RateLimit-Remaining header and back off as you approach it; stagger query frequency by priority — every 5 minutes for high-priority services, every 15 for lower ones.

The full API documentation — authentication, the Services, CDR and Routing Management areas, and code examples — is on the API page. Questions about a specific integration reach a human via the contact page.