Telegram: a chat button, and booking alerts - Documentation

Telegram does two things for you: a chat button on your site, and a notification on your phone when someone books. Both run through your own bot — the conversations are yours, and we never see them.

The Telegram screen: three steps — connect the bot, link your account, options. — Three steps, in order. The bot token first, then linking your own account so the bot knows where to write.

Step 1 — create your bot

Open @BotFather in Telegram and send /newbot.
It asks for a name, then gives you a token that looks like 123456:ABC-DEF….
Paste it in the console and press Connect.

Step 2 — link your own account

The bot cannot write to you until you have written to it once. Open your bot in Telegram and send it anything; the console picks up your chat identifier. This step is what people skip, and then wonder why no alert arrives.

Step 3 — choose what it does

Show the chat button on your site — visitors write to you in one tap.
Notify me of new bookings — works as soon as the bot is connected.
Notify me of incoming messages — this one needs a public webhook configured on our side; the console tells you so on the screen rather than failing silently.

The token is a password: anyone holding it can act as your bot. If you paste it in the wrong place, send /revoke to @BotFather and connect the new one.