Telegram bot builder

The builder sets up how the Telegram bot greets customers and collects a request before handing it to an operator — no programming. It lives in Settings → Telegram Bot Builder (under Channels; Telegram bot in the side menu); owners and admins can use it. VK and WhatsApp have their own builders in the same group, with fewer sections.

How the builder works

• Settings are kept separately for each Telegram bot. With two or more bots, pick one at the bottom of the side menu. If there's no bot yet, the builder shows No channel connected yet — Set up first creates an inactive draft channel.
• On the left is the Steps list of 15 sections with an “N / 15 configured” counter; it isn't a wizard, and sections open in any order. On the right is a static phone mockup of the current section.
• There's no publishing: Save applies the settings to the live bot right away, and Discard drops unsaved edits. Unsaved edits only live on the page — leaving it or switching bots shows a warning.

Sections

1. Welcome — the message on /start (and after the language is chosen), optionally with an image from a URL.
2. Topic Menu — buttons under the message: Topic, Custom topic (the customer types their own), Text (the bot answers with a ready text) and Link; how many sit in a row and whether topic icons show is set in Button Style. A button has a label of up to 64 characters, a colour and an emoji. The ticket's subject is the caption of the button tapped (or the topic's name). A topic can get fields (Add dependency): text, number, IP address, email, phone or a choice of options. The customer fills them in before asking, and the values land in the ticket's side panel and on the Telegram group card. A topic doesn't set a department or priority.
3. Request Handling — Require topic selection — without a topic the customer gets the menu and a no-topic reply, and no ticket is created; Show typing indicator; Auto-assign operator — a new ticket from this bot goes straight to the active operator with the fewest open tickets (respecting their Max concurrent tickets) and becomes In Progress.
4. Rating & Close — the rating request after a ticket is closed and, in Telegram, “Reply ratings 👍/👎 — for the whole project”: the project's one switch, the same as in Settings → Ratings and in the widget builder, which saves right away. Details are in Rating system.
5. Off Hours — Enable auto-reply (on until you turn it off) and its text: the message goes out once when a new ticket is created outside working hours. The hours themselves are set in Settings → Work Hours.
6. Commands — the command list that is sent to Telegram's command menu on save (for an active bot). The bot only answers the built-in /status, /faq, /hours and /help — which always work — and custom commands.
7. Settings — the texts of customer notifications (taken, transferred, waiting, returned, reopened), the reply after closing, the reply to a blocked customer, the inactivity warning texts, the Ticket history and Knowledge base menu buttons, showing the operator's name, forwarding ticket cards to the Telegram group and AI auto-replies. Rating is turned on in Rating & Close.
8. Keyword Auto-Replies — a pattern (a case-insensitive substring or a regular expression) and a reply. Rules are checked by ascending Priority, and the first match wins. The bot replies, but the ticket is still created. A rule with Active off doesn't fire.
9. Delayed Response — an automatic message to the customer if no operator has answered their last message within the set time (Delay, min: 1–120); with Repeat it comes again after the same delay until an operator replies. Works in Telegram, VK and WhatsApp.
10. Scheduled Greeting — a different /start greeting by the hour: rules “from HH:00 to HH:00”, and the first matching one wins. Hours follow the project's time zone from Settings → Work Hours, and a rule can cross midnight (say, from 22:00 to 06:00).
11. Knowledge Base — Enable integration, Auto-suggestions, Fallback to operator, Minimum confidence to reply: the bot searches published public articles by words (this isn't AI) and offers up to five as buttons. “How an article is shown” (Telegram only) decides what the article button itself delivers: “As text in the message” — the whole article, which works in every client, but formatting, tables and images are lost and a long article gets cut; “Open in a Mini App” — a short teaser and a “Read the article” button that opens it with its formatting. Text is the default. When the button cannot be shown (not a private chat, or a site address without https), the bot sends the text anyway. With Fallback to operator on, the ticket is created right away, along with the suggestions. With it off, no ticket is created, and the suggestions come with a “Contact support” button that passes that very question to an operator, with its topic and filled-in fields. The question is passed on the same way if the customer writes again within the hour. VK and WhatsApp have no button: the suggestions end with “If you need an operator, just write again”, and the next message within the hour passes the question to an operator, attachments included. In a conversation that's already open, the suggestions intercept nothing: the customer's message reaches the operator. The bot never shows internal articles to the customer: not in the suggestions, not in /faq and not in the Knowledge base menu — see Knowledge base.
12. Custom Commands — your own commands with a reply text — variables such as {name} are filled in. A switched-off command doesn't answer and isn't listed in /help.
13. Button Style — Columns — how many menu buttons sit in a row (1–4); Show icons — a topic button starts with that topic's icon (picked in Topic Menu). The Close and “New ticket” button texts are here too.
14. Ticket Messages — the ticket created and closed texts, with the {ticket_id}, {queue_position} and {avg_response_time} variables.
15. Admin-chat Notifications — the ticket card template for the team's Telegram group (the group is set with Group ID in the channel card). Cards arrive for tickets from every channel and are updated in place on assignment, closing, rating and snoozing.