Video:



This API will first call the customer, and once they pick up the phone, it will connect them to an app (aka flow) that you have created in the system - like your landing app, or any other app that can play a greeting, have IVR etc.


A HTTP POST request to https://<your_api_key>:<your_api_token>@<subdomain>/v1/Accounts/<your_sid>/Calls/connect has to be made


  • Replace <your_api_key> and <your_api_token> with the API key and token created by you.
  • Replace <your_sid> with your “Account sid”
  • Replace <subdomain>with the region of your account
    • <subdomain> of Singapore cluster is api.exotel.com
    • <subdomain> of Mumbai cluster is api.in.exotel.com

<your_api_key> , <your_api_token> and <your_sid> are available in the API settings page of your Exotel Dashboard


The following are the POST parameters:

PARAMETER NAMEMANDATORY/OPTIONALVALUE
FromMandatoryThe customer phone # that will be called first 
In the case of mobile numbers, prefix the 10 digits with a 0; Ex: 09052161119. 
In case of landline number, prefix it with STD code; Ex: 08030752400
CallerIdMandatoryThis is your Exotel Number (pick one from the 'Company Numbers' page)
CallTypeMandatory"trans" - for Transactional Calls 
UrlMandatory"http://my.exotel.in/exoml/start/~appid~"
where ~appid~ is the identifier of the app (or flow) that you want to connect to once the 'From' number picks up the call
TimeLimitOptionalThe time limit (in seconds) that you want this call to last. The maximum is 4 hours. The call will be cut after this time. 
TimeOutOptionalThe time (in seconds) to ring the called parties (both first and second call leg). Maximum is 1 minute (which, we hear is mandated by TRAI)
StatusCallbackOptionalWhen the call completes, an HTTP POST will be made to the URL mentioned with the following four parameters (This data will be passed in the Message body and as multipart/form-data) : 
CallSid - an alpha-numeric unique identifier 
Status - {completed, failed, busy, no-answer} 
RecordingUrl - link to the call recording (if it exists) 
DateUpdated - time when the call state was updated last
 CustomField OptionalAny application-specific value that will be passed back as a parameter while doing a GET request to the URL mentioned in your Passthru Applet or Greetings Applet.


HTTP Response:


On success, 

  • the HTTP response status code will be 200
  • the HTTP body will contain an XML such as what's given below. The "Sid" is the unique identifier of the call and will be useful to log this for future debuggability purposes.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<TwilioResponse>
 <Call>
  <Sid>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</Sid>
  <ParentCallSid/>
  <DateCreated>2012-08-17 12:31:49</DateCreated>
  <DateUpdated>2012-08-17 12:31:49</DateUpdated>
  <AccountSid>xxxxxxxxx</AccountSid>
  <To>09052161119</To>
  <From>09739761117</From>
  <PhoneNumberSid>xxxxxxx</PhoneNumberSid>
  <Status>in-progress</Status>
  <StartTime>2012-08-17 12:31:49</StartTime>
  <EndTime>2012-08-17 12:32:57</EndTime>
  <Duration></Duration>
  <Price></Price>
  <Direction>outbound-api</Direction>
  <AnsweredBy/>
  <ForwardedFrom/>
  <CallerName/>
  <RecordingUrl/>
  <Uri>/v1/Accounts/xxxxxxxx/Calls/xxxxxxxxxxxxxx</Uri>
 </Call>
</TwilioResponse>



On failure:

  • the HTTP response status code will be non 200
  • the HTTP body will contain an XML such as below with the details of why the request failed


<TwilioResponse>
<RestException>
<Status>400</Status>
<Message>Invalid Call Parameters: No 'From' specified</Message>
</RestException>
</TwilioResponse>


Rate Limit:

This API is rate limited to 200 calls per minute. Once this limit has been crossed, your requests will be rejected with an HTTP 429 'Too Many Requests' code.


You can run this API in cURL, NodeJS, PHP, Python, and Ruby. The requests can be taken from the developer portal


Sample PHP Code:

An example PHP code for this is available on Github

Sample Ruby Code:

Sample code is available at Github and Ruby Gem available at rubygems.org