Telegram

Connect a Telegram bot, and every private message a customer sends to it arrives in Conversations, where your team replies. It is the quickest channel to set up: you need only the bot's token, and Rutba CRM tells Telegram where to deliver.

Before you start

• Who can do it: owners and administrators of the company.
• Plan: available when your plan includes Conversations inbox and Telegram channel. The number of connected channels is a plan limit.
• A pipeline: new contacts get a deal in the stage you choose. See Deals and pipelines.
• A bot of your own that no other tool receives messages for. Connecting it takes over the bot's delivery address.

Step 1: create a bot with BotFather

1. In Telegram, open a chat with @BotFather.
2. Send /newbot, then give the bot a display name and a username ending in bot.
3. BotFather replies with the bot's token. It looks like 123456789:AAH...: digits, a colon, then a long code. Keep it private: anyone with it controls the bot.

You can set the bot's picture and description with BotFather too. Customers find the bot by its username, or through a t.me link to it.

Step 2: add the channel

1. In the sidebar open Conversations, then click Channels.
2. Open Connect Telegram and fill in:

3. Click Add channel.

Rutba CRM registers its address with Telegram straight away, with a secret that every delivery must carry. When it works, the card says Connected to Telegram automatically. There is nothing to set on Telegram's side.

Step 3: test it

1. From your own Telegram account, open the bot and press Start, then send a message.
2. In Conversations, the conversation appears with a new contact, named after your Telegram name, and a deal in the chosen stage.
3. Reply from the conversation. The reply arrives in Telegram from the bot.

Good to know

• Private chats only. Messages in groups or channels where the bot is a member are ignored, and so are messages from other bots.
• No reply window. Unlike WhatsApp, you can reply at any time.
• Files: photos, documents, videos, voice notes and audio from customers show in the conversation. You can attach one file to a reply.
• Contacts: Telegram does not share the customer's phone number, so each new chat creates a new contact. If the person is already a contact, merge the two; see Contacts.
• One bot, one channel. The same bot cannot be connected twice.
• The bot's other uses stop. Telegram delivers a bot's messages to one address. If the bot was connected to another tool, that tool stops receiving them.
• Turning the channel off stops replies, and Telegram's deliveries are refused. Turn on registers the address with Telegram again.

Troubleshooting