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Connect Telegram in five minutes

You need one thing: a bot token from Telegram's own @BotFather. Create the bot, copy the token, paste it into the Bot Token field on the Telegram card. We do the rest.

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The short version

Four steps

Do them in order. Step 1 happens inside Telegram; step 3 happens in your dashboard.

1

Talk to @BotFather in Telegram

Open Telegram on your phone or computer. In the search box at the top, type BotFather and open the result with a blue tick next to the name. Tap Start.

Then send this one message:

/newbot

BotFather asks two questions, one at a time.

  • "How are we going to call it?" — this is the display name your customers see. Your shop name works: Sharma Textiles.
  • "Now let's choose a username" — this is the @handle. It must end with the letters bot and must not already be taken, so try something like sharmatextiles_bot. If BotFather says the name is taken, add a word or a number and send it again.
2

Copy the token

BotFather replies with a congratulations message. A few lines down it says "Use this token to access the HTTP API" and then shows the token on its own line, like this:

123456789:AAE-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tap the token once — Telegram copies it for you. Copy all of it, including the digits before the colon. Do not add spaces or quotes.

This token is a password for your bot. Treat it like one. Do not put it in a WhatsApp group or an email.

3

Paste it into the dashboard

Go to app.orcalinq.com/channels — in the sidebar that is Setup → Channels. Open the Telegram Bot API card and click Connect Telegram Bot API.

There is one field, Bot Token. Paste, then click Save & verify.

We check the token against Telegram immediately, and then point Telegram's webhook at us for you. On success you see "Inbound messages are wired up", and there is nothing to paste anywhere else.

4

Send it a message

The success screen has an Open Telegram bot button — click it, or search your bot's @handle in Telegram, and send hello. The reply comes back from your assistant, answering from your own website content.

Once the drawer is closed, the same link on the Telegram card is labelled Open bot chat. Both just open the bot; neither changes any setting.

Want handed-off chats to land on your phone instead of only in the dashboard? That is a second, separate step — see mobile inbox. Connecting the bot alone does not make your phone ring.

Losing the token

Where the token lives afterwards

We store the token encrypted and never show it back to you. Telegram will, though.

  • In Telegram, message BotFather and send /mybots. Pick your bot, then tap API Token. The token is shown again.
  • If you don't see API Token on that screen, send /token to BotFather instead and choose your bot from the list it offers.
  • That screen may also offer to revoke the token and issue a new one. If you do that, the old token stops working straight away — come back to the Telegram card, click Update credentials, and paste the new one, or messages stop arriving.
If that did not work

The five things that actually go wrong

  • The token was rejected when you saved. The red message under the field is Telegram's own words. "Unauthorized" means the token is wrong or has been revoked — fetch it again with /mybots. Most often a character is missing from the front: the part before the colon is part of the token.
  • "This telegram account is already connected to another account here." One bot can only serve one business on our platform. Either disconnect it from the other account first, or create a second bot with /newbot and use that one.
  • "Connected — but we couldn't set the webhook for you." The token is saved and outgoing messages will work, but nothing will come in. Open the Telegram card and click Re-verify under Maintenance — that tries the wiring again. If it keeps failing, send us the message shown in brackets at support@orcalinq.com.
  • You messaged the bot and nothing came back. Open the Telegram card and read the small health lines near the top. "Webhook not installed at upstream" or "Last delivery failed" both mean inbound is broken — click Re-verify. If it says "Webhook installed · Updates flowing" and you still got no reply, the problem is on the answering side, not the Telegram side.
  • BotFather is not in your search results. Make sure you are searching Telegram's global search, not just your own chat list, and check the spelling — it is one word. There are copycat accounts; the real one has a blue verified tick.
Worth knowing

Two limits of Telegram itself

  • You cannot message a customer first. Telegram only lets your bot reply to people who have started a chat with it. Put the bot's link on your website and your invoices so customers can begin.
  • Changing the bot means changing the token. Renaming the bot in BotFather is fine and needs nothing from you. Deleting the bot, or revoking its token, breaks the connection until you paste a new token.
Related pages

Keep exploring

One field, and your bot is live.

Telegram is the quickest channel to switch on: no business verification, no message templates, no waiting for approval.

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