Telegram

Telegram connects in two ways. Scan with your phone adds the OmniBrand bot to your channel: nothing to create or paste. Advanced uses a bot of your own from @BotFather.

Scan with your phone (recommended)

1. In OmniBrand, as an Owner or Admin: Set up → Accounts → click Telegram under Connect an account. The window Connect Telegram opens.
2. Under Scan with your phone, scan the code with your phone's camera (on a phone, tap Open Telegram). Telegram opens the OmniBrand bot: tap Start.
3. The bot answers "Linked to [your workspace] ([your organisation]). Only continue if you just scanned this code on your own computer." Check that the workspace and the organisation are yours: if they are not (someone sent you their code), do not add the bot anywhere. Then tap "Add to channel" (or "Add to group"), pick your channel, keep Post Messages on, and tap Done. The code works for 10 minutes; after Start you have 30 minutes to add the bot.
4. The window says "Connected: [channel name]". The bot also says it in Telegram.

What to know:

• Only someone who may add administrators to the channel can add the bot, and only the person who scanned the code connects it, to the workspace that showed the code.
• A channel can belong to one workspace. "Already connected to another OmniBrand workspace" means: disconnect it there first.
• "Post Messages is off": in the channel open Administrators, tap the OmniBrand bot, turn on Post Messages, and tap Save. The window turns to "Connected" by itself while it is open.
• Removing the bot from the channel (or turning off Post Messages) shows the account as Sign-in expired; add the bot again (scan a new code) to reconnect.
• With the OmniBrand bot, messages in a connected group arrive in the inbox. Messages people send the bot privately do not, and Telegram broadcasts need your own bot (Advanced).
• When Scan with your phone is not shown, this OmniBrand server has no shared bot set up yet; use Advanced.

Advanced: your own bot

Use this when you want your own bot name, private messages to the bot in your inbox, or Telegram broadcasts. In the window Connect Telegram, use Use your own bot (Advanced).

1. In Telegram, open @BotFather and send /newbot. Choose a name and a username ending in "bot". BotFather replies with a token like 123456789:AAE.... Treat it like a password.
2. Open your Telegram channel (or group) → Administrators → Add Admin, and add the bot. Give it Post Messages, and Delete Messages if you want Retract to work.
3. In OmniBrand, as an Owner or Admin: Set up → Accounts → click Telegram under Connect an account. In the window Connect Telegram, go to Use your own bot (Advanced).
4. Fill in Bot token (from BotFather) and Channel: @yourchannel (or the link t.me/yourchannel) for a public channel, or the numeric id such as -1001234567890 for a private one. To find a private channel's id, open the channel in Telegram Web (web.telegram.org/a): the address ends with it, for example #-1001234567890.
5. Click Connect account. Before saving, OmniBrand checks that the token works, that the bot can see the channel, and that the bot is an administrator allowed to post there (in a group, that it is a member).

What happens next

• Publish text (up to 4,096 characters), or one image or video with a caption of up to 1,024 characters. Several attachments on one post: the first is posted (a video is preferred) and you are told.
• Retract works for 48 hours after posting; after that Telegram refuses to delete.
• A post in a public channel gets a t.me link; posts in private channels and groups have none.
• Anyone who writes to your bot directly, and messages in groups the bot is in, arrive in the inbox; your reply goes back to the same chat. In a group, Telegram only passes a bot the messages addressed to it unless you turn off the bot's privacy mode in @BotFather (/setprivacy).

If something goes wrong

• The connect is refused with "Telegram did not accept this bot token." - copy the token again from @BotFather (send /mybots, choose the bot, then API Token) and paste it in Bot token. With "Telegram could not find this channel for the bot." - check Channel: @username for a public channel, the numeric id starting with -100 for a private one, and that the bot was added to it. With "The bot is not an administrator of this channel with permission to post." - in Telegram open the channel → Administrators, add the bot and turn on Post Messages, then click Connect account again. With "That is a person's chat with the bot, not a channel or group." - enter the channel's @username or its -100 id in Channel instead. With "This group was upgraded to a supergroup and now has a new id" - enter that id in Channel.
• The connect is refused with "This Telegram bot sends its messages to another tool (a webhook is set), so OmniBrand could not receive them. Remove the webhook in that tool, then connect again." - another tool (a chatbot builder, a CRM) has taken the bot's messages. Remove the bot from that tool, or create a new bot in @BotFather for OmniBrand, then click Connect account again.
• The connect is refused with "This Telegram bot is already connected in OmniBrand, to another chat or in another workspace." - Telegram gives each bot one message queue, so one bot serves one channel or group here, in one workspace. Create a second bot in @BotFather for this channel, or disconnect the other one first. Reconnecting the same channel with the same bot is fine.
• Messages stop arriving - use this bot only with OmniBrand. A bot that another tool also reads (or that has a webhook set elsewhere) cannot deliver to both; the account's row then says why under Details.
• Sign-in expired - the token was revoked in BotFather (/revoke) or the bot was removed from the channel. Create a new token, then connect again. A post fails saying the group "was upgraded to a supergroup" with a new id: disconnect the group, then connect it again with that id in Channel.