Docs · Agent portal

Your Telegram chat ID is a number, and Telegram hides it

It looks like 123456789. Telegram's own apps do not show it anywhere in Settings, so the way to get it is to ask a bot that reports it back to you. Do that only if the one-tap Link Telegram button has already failed — the button exists so you never have to touch this number.

Open My Alerts Why alerts stay silent

Before the hard way

Give the one-tap link one more try

In the agent portal, open My Alerts at agents.orcalinq.com/channels. Under Add a channel, set Type to Telegram. A blue panel appears headed Recommended — link in one tap with a Link Telegram button. It opens the business's bot in a new tab. Tap Start and you are bound; the bot replies"Telegram mobile inbox connected".

These are the reasons it does not work, and what each one needs:

Nothing opened at all. Your browser blocked the new tab. Allow pop-ups for this site, or open the portal on the phone that has Telegram installed and tap the button there.
Telegram opened, but there was no Start button. That happens when you have opened that bot's chat before — Telegram then skips the hidden one-time token. The bot answers with a help message beginning "Hi! To bind this Telegram chat as your live-chat mobile inbox". That reply is proof the token never arrived. Deleting that bot chat in Telegram and pressing Link Telegram again usually restores a real Start button. If it does not, use the numeric ID below.
"This mobile inbox link is expired or has not propagated yet." The link lasts one hour. Press Link Telegram again and tap Start within a few seconds.
"Telegram is not connected for this business yet." Nothing you can fix from your side. The owner has to connect the Telegram channel first, at app.orcalinq.com/channels — see connect Telegram.
"Your OrcaLinq agent profile is not active yet." Your membership has not been confirmed. Finish that first — see joining a team.

The hard way

Ask a bot for your ID

Open Telegram and search for a bot that reports IDs

Tap the search field at the top of Telegram and type @userinfobot. Open the result. Tap START at the bottom, or send it the word /start.

It replies with a few lines. One of them is your ID, written as Id: 123456789. That number is what you need.

These ID bots are made by other people, not by us. They can see your name, your Telegram username and whatever you send them, so send nothing else. Never paste a join code, a password or a bot token into one.

If that bot does not answer, or the label looks different

Third-party bots get renamed and go offline; that is the risk of this route. Alternatives that do the same job: @getidsbot, or @RawDataBot.

@RawDataBot answers with a block of technical text instead of a tidy label. Look for the section headed "from" and take the number on the "id" line inside it. Ignore every other number in that block — message_id, date and the rest are not your chat ID.

Rule of thumb: your ID is between 8 and 10 digits, has no plus sign and no spaces, and is not your phone number. If you are looking at your phone number, you have the wrong field.

Send one message to the business's bot

Open the business's own bot in Telegram and send it anything — /start is fine. Telegram does not permit a bot to message somebody who has never opened a chat with it, so without this step alerts will still not arrive, however correct your ID is.

If you do not know which bot it is, ask the owner: on the Telegram channel card there is an Open bot chat link. Opening the bot on its own binds nothing, which is exactly why it is safe to use for this step.

Paste the number into My Alerts

Back on My Alerts, with Type set to Telegram, put the number in the Address field — the one showing 123456789 as a hint — and click Add channel. Then click Make active on the row so handed-over chats are routed there first.

Digits only. No @, no spaces, no quotes. A username or bot handle is refused outright with a message telling you a numeric chat ID is required. That refusal is deliberate: a handle in this field would look saved and deliver nothing.

That refusal message tells you to use Link mobile inbox on the dashboard's Telegram channel. If you are not the account owner you will not have the dashboard; the Link Telegram button on your own My Alerts page is the same thing.

Watch for an amber line after saving

If the row saves with an amber message saying the business has not connected Telegram yet, the ID is fine but there is no sender to deliver from. The owner has to connect the channel. Nothing you do on this page changes that.

Do not do this

One route that will break the account

You will find advice online that says to read your chat ID fromapi.telegram.org/bot<token>/getUpdates using the bot's token. Do not do that with the business's bot.

We keep a webhook installed on that bot so customer messages reach us. While a webhook is set, Telegram refuses getUpdates and answers with a conflict error, so the trick does not work anyway.
Removing the webhook to make it work would stop every incoming Telegram message for the business — customers included — until it is reinstalled.
The bot token is a credential. It should not be pasted into a browser address bar, a chat, or a support message.

Nor is your ID anywhere in Telegram's own Settings. Do not go looking for it there.

If that did not work

Saved the number, still nothing

You never opened the business's bot. The most common cause. Step 3 above is not optional.
You pasted somebody else's ID, or your phone number. Re-run step 1 and compare. An ID that belongs to nobody fails silently.
The number begins with a minus. That is a group chat, not you. The field accepts it, but the bot has to be a member of that group for anything to arrive, and we do not set group alerts up for you. Use your personal ID.
Two Telegram rows listed. Harmless, but only the active one is tried first. Remove the one you do not want, so you are not debugging the wrong row.
Everything looks right and it is still silent. The cause is probably somewhere else on the chain — working hours, website assignment, or the channel's own health. Work through alerts are not arriving in order.
Still stuck. Email support@orcalinq.com with the last thing the bot said to you in Telegram, word for word, and the number of digits in the ID you pasted. Do not send the ID itself or any token.

One tap first. The number only if the tap fails.

The Link Telegram button on My Alerts binds your chat without any ID at all — try it before copying numbers around.