Activechat Manual
  • What is Activechat?
  • New? Start here
    • The basics
    • Set up your first project
    • Install the chat widget
    • Upload the knowledge
    • Explore the CRM
    • AI-assisted live chat
      • How to set context for AI hints
    • Live chat mobile app
    • Build your first automation
  • Conversational AI
    • For Customer Service Teams
    • For Product Managers
    • For Innovation Teams
    • For Marketers
    • For e-commerce
    • For developers
  • Help Guides
    • Setting up your team
    • Managing conversations
      • Customer attributes
      • User tags and segments
      • Searching for specific users
      • Agent tags (live chat groups and queues)
      • Triggering live chat sessions from the bot
      • Notifications with the TRIGGER block
    • Managing knowledge
      • Uploading business data
      • Question answering and live chat hints
      • Fine-tuning the large language model
    • Natural language automation
    • Building automations visually
      • Customizing your welcome message
      • Adding new skills
      • Navigating skills
      • Copying skills and blocks
      • Handling errors
    • Improving your virtual agent
    • Using live chat AI hints
    • Customizing automatic website page messages
    • Tracking website actions
    • Facebook Ads automation
      • How to set up a Facebook ads bot
      • How to use buttons and quick replies in a Facebook ads chatbot
    • Lead generation
    • Zapier integrations
    • Customizing your project
      • How to customize the chat widget
      • How to customize the Facebook chat widget
      • How to change bot settings
    • Pricing guide
  • Fundamentals
    • Terminology
      • Intents and entities
      • Contexts
      • Skills and events
        • Built-in system skills
          • /start
          • /default
          • /_default_fallback
          • /_start_live_chat
          • /_page_visit
          • /_error
      • Conversation elements
        • Messages
        • Buttons
        • Quick replies
        • Galleries / carousels
    • Messaging channels
      • Website chat widget
        • Installation
        • Customization
        • Voice input
      • Chat widget landing page
      • Facebook Messenger
        • Connect your page
        • 24 hour rule
        • Message tags
        • Persistent menu
      • Telegram
      • Email
      • Twilio SMS automation
    • Intents and bot skills
    • Conversation insights
    • Grow tools
      • Landing pages
      • Messenger links and QR codes
    • Broadcasting
  • Visual builder reference
    • Sending messages
      • TEXT
      • LISTEN
      • IMAGE
      • MEDIA
      • GALLERY
      • FILE
      • EMAIL
      • SMS
      • LEAD
    • Triggering events
      • SEND
      • CATCH
      • TRIGGER
      • LIVE CHAT
    • Manipulating data
      • DATA
      • ADD TAG
      • REMOVE TAG
      • JSON
      • STATUS
      • VALIDATION
    • Conditional logic
      • SWITCH
    • Timers and delays
      • TIMER
      • WAITFOR
      • WAITUNTIL
    • E-commerce blocks
      • CATEGORY
      • PRODUCT
      • VARIATIONS
      • SIMILAR
      • UPSELLS
      • CROSSSELS
      • Shopping carts
        • ADD TO CART
        • UPDATE CART
        • SHOW CART
        • CLEAR CART
        • CREATE ORDER
    • Natural Language
      • NLP
    • System attributes
    • System events
  • Integrations
    • Google services
      • Connect your Google account
      • Google Sheets
        • Searching and updating Google Sheets data
        • Building galleries with Google Sheets data
      • Google Calendar
        • Searching for events
        • Creating and updating events
    • Shopify
    • WooCommerce
    • Dialogflow
      • Building an agent
      • Using entities
      • Slot filling
      • Context management
      • E-commerce NLP
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Connecting your agent to Telegram
  • Getting chatbot token from @BotFather
  • Connecting Telegram chatbot to Activechat
  • How to use bot commands in Telegram
  • Best practices for using commands

Was this helpful?

  1. Fundamentals
  2. Messaging channels

Telegram

PreviousPersistent menuNextEmail

Last updated 3 years ago

Was this helpful?

is a fast-growing messaging platform with over 500 million active users (as of 2022). Telegram chatbots are used widely for various use cases, and for Telegram is extremely easy with Activechat.

The most powerful features of Telegram are:

  • Privacy. Messages are heavily encrypted and can self-destruct after specific periods of time.

  • Speed. Telegram delivers messages faster than any other messenger platform.

  • Power. Telegram has no limits in terms of the size of your media and chats.

  • Security. Telegram keeps all messages safe from external attackers.

As of Jan 2022, Telegram does not support . Keep that in mind when designing your conversations.

Another thing to keep in mind: at the moment ActiveChat does not support channels or group chats. The functionality is planned to be added in the future, however, there is no specific ETA for that.

Check the articles below for some specific information on Telegram chatbots.

Connecting your agent to Telegram

To create a new Telegram chatbot to be used with Activechat, you will need to use the . It’s a system chatbot within Telegram, built specifically to maintain customers' chatbots.

Getting chatbot token from @BotFather

Follow these simple steps to create a new Telegram chatbot and connect it to Activechat:

1. Find @BotFather user or click the link

@BotFather Telegram chatbot

2. Send /newbot command and give your bot a name. Type this name and press Enter.

3. Give your bot some smart @username (no spaces, English symbols, and digits, should end with _bot).

4. Ready! Copy the access token that @BotFather sent you (select it and press Ctrl+C or Cmd-C).

Connecting Telegram chatbot to Activechat

Now you can use that token in Activechat to connect your new shiny Telegram chatbot to any of your existing bots (or maybe create a new one).

1. Choose “Settings – Channels” in the menu on the left and click the gear icon in the Telegram tile.

2. Paste the access token that you got from @BotFather, click “Connect” and you’re done!

How to use bot commands in Telegram

Type your commands (one per line) with simple descriptions. Please keep in mind that all commands should be contained within a single message, so use “Ctrl+Enter” (or “Cmd+Enter on Mac”) to separate lines, and hit “Send” only after you’ve entered all commands.

Now if you go to your new chatbot on Telegram and hit “/”, it will display the list of commands with descriptions, and once you click a command, an event with the same name will be sent to your chatbot.

In this example, the “/about” command will send “about” event (that will trigger “about” skill in Activechat), “/contact” will send “contact” event, etc.

Best practices for using commands

  • Be descriptive. Chatbot commands tell your users what your chatbot can do, and when designed wisely can immensely increase retention.

  • Keep the list of commands short (unless you’re building a chatbot for some specific use case, where many commands are a must).

Creating a new Telegram chatbot with @BotFather
Connecting new Telegram chatbot to Activechat

Telegram allows you to use commands to build something similar to . These menus can be triggered when the user types “/” (slash) in the conversation.

Example of the chatbot menu on Telegram

You can use commands to in your chatbot. Just go back to on Telegram and type “/setcommands”. The bot will ask you which of your chatbots to use, and then prompt you to enter the list of commands.

Each command will trigger a with the same name in Activechat.

Adding a list of commands to your chatbot on Telegram
Telegram chatbot commands triggered with “/"

As with , it makes sense to follow some simple guidelines when designing the lists of commands for your Telegram chatbot.

Use commands to provide access to key features of your chatbot, adding event buttons to .

Persistent Menus on Facebook Messenger
trigger specific skills
@BotFather
chatbot event
Facebook Messenger Persistent Menus
trigger chatbot skills
Telegram
building an advanced chatbot
galleries
@BotFather
https://t.me/BotFather