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Connect a Telegram bot to Shortext and an agent answers the customers who write to it. You create the bot yourself with ＠BotFather, Telegram’s official bot, then give its token to Shortext: there is no page to log in to, the token is enough.

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Connect a bot

1

Create the bot with ＠BotFather

In Telegram, open ＠BotFather, send /newbot and choose a name and a username for your bot (it must end with bot, for example AcmeSupportBot).＠BotFather answers with the bot’s token, in the form 123456789:AA.... Copy it.
The token gives full control of the bot. Do not share it outside Shortext.
2

Add the bot to Shortext

Open Communication > Channels > Telegram, create a bot and paste the token.
3

Choose the agent

Choose the agent that answers on this bot. You can change it at any time.
4

Save

Shortext checks the token with Telegram and the bot starts receiving messages at once.
The token is encrypted and never shown again, in the dashboard or the API. A bot can be connected only once. If the token is badly formed, refused by Telegram, or belongs to a bot that is already connected, the bot is not saved and the error says why.

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With the API

POST /channels/telegram connects a bot (Manage integrations permission):
The response is the channel, as returned by GET /channels, with the id tga_... and these settings: A wrong, refused or already connected token is a validation error (1002) on bot_token. PATCH /channels/telegram/{id} changes the fields you send, and DELETE /channels/telegram/{id} deletes the bot. List your bots with GET /channels?type=telegram, and attach or detach the agent with PUT and DELETE /channels/telegram/{id}/agent, as for the other channels.

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How customers reach you

On Telegram, the customer writes first: they open your bot and tap Start. A bot cannot write to someone who has never started it. Share the link of your bot, https://t.me/<username>, on your website, your emails or a QR code. To know where a customer comes from, add ?start= followed by a code, for example https://t.me/AcmeSupportBot?start=website. The code is up to 64 characters: letters, digits, _ and -. Once the customer has started the bot, you can write to them at any time: there is no 24-hour window and no template on Telegram.

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Contacts

A Telegram contact is identified by their Telegram user id. Telegram does not give their phone number or country, unless the customer chooses to share their number. A customer who blocks the bot is unsubscribed. If they start the bot again, they are subscribed again. Only private conversations with the bot are supported, not groups.

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Messages

See Message format for the payloads. Limits:
  • 4,096 characters per message, 1,024 for a media caption;
  • files received from customers up to 20 MB;
  • about one message per second in each conversation.
Telegram sends no delivery or read receipts: a message accepted by Telegram is marked delivered.

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Billing

Each message sent on Telegram is billed at your company’s service rate (plus the AI reply beyond your plan), with no provider fee: Telegram charges nothing. See Balance and wallet movements.

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Disable or delete a bot

  • Disable the bot to stop receiving messages; enable it again to resume. If you regenerate the token in ＠BotFather, update it in Shortext (PATCH with the new bot_token): only a token of the same bot is accepted.
  • Delete it when you no longer need it. It is final: the bot stops receiving and its conversations leave the Inbox (they are kept for audits). The bot itself stays yours in ＠BotFather.