Telegram Bot Channel

Connect a Telegram bot to your Boei inbox. Customers message the bot in Telegram, conversations land in your inbox, and your AI chatbot can reply automatically.

How to get there: Go to Settings → Business in the left menu → click your website → Inbox tab → Channels → Telegram card.

Note: This is different from the Telegram widget channel, which just opens Telegram from your website. This page is about hosting your AI agent inside a Telegram bot so customers can chat with it directly in Telegram.

Prerequisites

  • A Telegram account
  • Your Boei account on a plan that includes the WhatsApp / Email / Telegram channel feature

Step 1: Create a Telegram Bot

  1. Open Telegram and search for @BotFather
  2. Send /newbot
  3. Pick a display name (e.g. "Acme Support")
  4. Pick a username — must end in bot (e.g. acme_support_bot)
  5. BotFather replies with a bot token that looks like 123456789:ABCdef-GhIJkl...
  6. Copy the token. You'll paste it into Boei in the next step.

Tip: While you're in BotFather you can also run /setdescription, /setabouttext, and /setuserpic to give your bot a name card customers will recognize.

Step 2: Connect the Bot to Boei

  1. In Boei go to Settings → Business → click your website → Inbox tab → Channels → Provider Accounts card
  2. Click Connect Provider Account
  3. Select Telegram (Bot) as the provider
  4. Enter a name (e.g. "Acme Support Bot")
  5. Paste the bot token from BotFather
  6. Click Connect

Boei will call Telegram to verify the token and pull your bot's username automatically.

Step 3: Add the Telegram Channel

  1. Still in the Channels tab, click Telegram
  2. Click Add Telegram Channel
  3. Enter a Channel Name (e.g. "Support Telegram")
  4. Select the Provider Account you connected in Step 2
  5. Optionally select an AI Chatbot to auto-reply to incoming messages
  6. Click Create

Boei automatically registers the webhook with Telegram so messages start flowing in immediately. The bot's @username is used as the channel identifier.

You're All Set

Incoming Telegram messages will now appear in your Boei inbox. You can:

  • Reply directly from the inbox
  • Assign conversations to team members
  • Let your AI chatbot handle first responses automatically
  • View all conversations alongside your other channels (email, SMS, WhatsApp, website chat)

Limits and Behavior

  • One bot can connect to one Boei channel. Telegram only allows a single webhook URL per bot.
  • Messages over ~4000 characters are split or truncated. Telegram's hard limit is 4096 characters per message.
  • The bot only handles 1:1 chats. Group chats and channels are ignored.
  • If you remove the channel, Boei calls Telegram to clear the webhook.

Troubleshooting

Problem Solution
"Invalid bot token" when connecting The token is wrong or revoked. Open BotFather, send /mybots, pick the bot, and use API Token → Revoke current token to generate a fresh one.
Messages not arriving in Boei Recreate the channel — this re-registers the webhook with Telegram.
Bot doesn't reply automatically Make sure you selected an AI Chatbot when creating the channel, and that the chatbot has training content.
The bot replies in groups too Telegram channel only handles private chats. Use BotFather's /setjoingroups to disable groups entirely.