Connect a Telegram bot

Messages people send to your Telegram bot arrive in the Inbox. You answer them there, and your automations, flows, and AI replies answer them too. Telegram is included from the Gold plan.

Create a bot and connect it

1. In Telegram, open @BotFather.
2. Send /newbot and choose a name and a username for the bot.
3. BotFather replies with a token. Copy it.
4. In VivaDialog, owners and admins open Settings, find the Telegram bot card, and click Connect a bot.
5. Paste the token under Bot token and click Connect bot.
6. Send your bot a message in Telegram to check that it reaches the Inbox.

The token is stored encrypted. Anyone who has it can control your bot, so keep it out of chats and screenshots.

If the bot already sends its messages to another service, VivaDialog asks first. Click Connect it here anyway only if that service no longer needs them: it stops receiving messages once you connect here.

A bot can be connected to one workspace only, and it counts toward your plan’s channel limit.

What works

• Private chats with the bot. Group chats and channels are not included.
• New messages arrive live. Older messages can’t be imported, because Telegram keeps no history for bots.
• Photos, voice messages, files, and stickers show as a note of what was sent, with the caption. The file itself is not downloaded.
• Commands such as /start arrive as ordinary messages, so an automation can answer them.
• Telegram has no 24-hour window: you can reply to a chat at any time.

What does not work

• The bot can’t start a chat. People have to message it first.
• Messages longer than 4,096 characters are not sent.
• Telegram allows about one message per second in a chat, so replies in quick succession can wait a moment.
• If the person blocked the bot or deleted the chat, replies fail.

When the token stops working

If you revoke or change the token in BotFather, the channel shows “Telegram no longer accepts this bot’s token. Paste the current token from BotFather to reconnect.” Owners and admins get an alert. Click Reconnect and paste the current token.

If your plan changes

Below Gold, messages to the bot still arrive in the Inbox, but automations and flows don’t run on them and replies can’t be sent.