Connecting a Telegram bot

On Telegram, customers write to your business's own bot, and your agent and your team answer them in the Inbox. The bot is yours: you own it in Telegram and manage it in @BotFather, and disconnecting it in Syniria never deletes it.

Press Connect on the Telegram card. There are two ways to connect.

Create a bot:

1. Press Open Telegram. Telegram opens a chat with Syniria's own bot. On a computer without Telegram, scan the QR code with your phone's camera to open the same link there.
2. Press Start in that chat, then tap Create your bot. Telegram fills in your business's name, and you can change it.
3. Press Create. Your bot connects by itself, and Syniria's bot confirms it in Telegram.

Keep the Syniria page open: it updates when your bot is connected. The link works for 15 minutes; after that, press Open Telegram again for a new one.

Use a bot you already have: press Use it instead, under "Already have a bot?". In Telegram, open @BotFather, send /mybots, choose your bot, then API Token. Copy the token, paste it under Bot token and press Connect bot. Syniria keeps the token encrypted and never shows it again. Customers who already use your bot keep their chats with it, and new messages come to Syniria from the moment it connects.

If the bot already sends its messages to another service, Syniria asks first: connecting moves them to Syniria, and that service stops getting them. Press Connect to Syniria to go ahead.

Once it's connected, the panel shows the bot's username and its link for customers, such as t.me/YourShopBot. Share that link wherever customers find you.

• Your privacy policy (optional): Telegram asks every bot for one. Enter its link and press Done, and Syniria adds it to your bot's description. If your bot has a description of its own, Syniria leaves it as it is: add the link in @BotFather, under Bot Settings, then Privacy Policy.
• What customers see first: if your bot had no description, Syniria writes one: "Replies may come from an AI assistant or our team." Change it any time in @BotFather.

Each bot takes one of your plan's channel slots (see How many channels your plan includes).

What works on Telegram:

• Customers can send text, photos, voice notes, files, videos, stickers, locations and contacts. Your agent understands photos and voice notes, as on the other channels, and everything shows in the chat for your team. Telegram doesn't let bots fetch files over 20 MB, so the chat shows a note instead.
• Your agent replies with text and can show your products' photos. Your team replies with text: photos, files and voice notes can't be sent on Telegram yet.
• There's no 24-hour window: you can reply at any time. A reply shows one tick once it's sent, because Telegram doesn't report when it's delivered or read.
• Every chat begins with the customer pressing Start, which the Inbox shows as "Started the chat".
• Telegram doesn't give bots a customer's phone number, so your agent asks for one when a booking needs it.
• Only private chats with your bot reach Syniria. Messages in groups and channels are ignored.

If your bot stops getting messages, because it was connected to another tool, or the token you pasted was revoked in @BotFather, Channels shows Reconnect needed and Syniria emails you. Press Reconnect, then Use it instead, and paste the bot's current token. A bot you created through Syniria gets its new token by itself when you change it in @BotFather.