Telegram bot

How to connect a Telegram bot to Lalexi: the BotFather token, the automatic webhook and the one-bot-one-system rule.

This connects a Telegram bot (@your_bot) through the official Bot API. Customers write to the bot and the team answers from the shared chat list.

If you need a personal account rather than a bot, see Telegram.

Create the bot

In Telegram write to @BotFather.
Send /newbot and give the bot a name and a username.
BotFather replies with the token — a long string like 123456789:AA.... That token is access to the bot.

This is set up by a workspace administrator: a member with the agent role sees Settings → Inboxes only in part and cannot create standard inboxes — see Team.

How to connect

Go to Settings → Inboxes and press Add Inbox.
Pick the Telegram channel.
Paste the token into the Bot Token field.
Press Create Telegram Channel.
Add agents — otherwise nobody will see the conversations.

The token is checked immediately: an invalid or revoked one won't create the channel. There is no name to enter — the inbox shows up as Telegram and can be renamed later in its own settings. Lalexi registers the Telegram webhook itself.

One bot, one system. On connecting, Lalexi points the bot's webhook at itself and drops the previous one. If that bot already served another service or a script of your own, it will go silent there. Use a separate bot for testing.

Using it

A bot cannot write first. The customer starts the conversation: they open the bot and press Start. Give them a t.me/your_bot link — on your site or in a signature, say.
The conversation appears in the shared chat list with its first incoming message.
The main scenario is one-to-one conversation.
The bot brings no earlier history: only messages received after it was connected show up.

What this channel doesn't get

The bot takes no slot in the connection limit, it has no Connection tab, and it is unavailable in campaigns, warm-up and New message; its messages don't appear in Usage. SLA, quality control and reports work as usual.

If it doesn't work

Symptom	Cause
The channel isn't created	The token is wrong, revoked, or the bot's access was removed. Get a fresh token from @BotFather (`/token`).
The bot went silent in another service	That's how Telegram works: a bot has one webhook. Create a separate bot for the other system.
Messages don't arrive	Check the customer pressed Start — before that the bot receives nothing from them.