Telegram

Telegram has no incoming webhooks, so the destination is a bot: one you create in a minute, that you own, and that InBrief posts through. Because a bot token could post anywhere the bot has been added, the console proves the chat is yours before anything is sent: it posts a code into the chat and asks you to type it back.

Dashboard → Notifications → Telegram. Owners and admins can manage it; it is part of the Subscriber updates capability.

Key features

• Posts into a private chat, a group or a public channel, in the language you choose, for the services you choose.
• A confirmation code before the first real post, so a mistyped chat id cannot leak your updates to a stranger's chat.
• The bot token and chat id are write-only; the card shows the bot's numeric id and a reference to the chat.
• If Telegram moves a group to a new id (which happens when a group becomes a supergroup), the console follows it and says so.
• Test, pause, resume, delete, and a delivery history.

Connecting a chat

Dashboard → Notifications → Telegram. This is the screen:

Creating the bot

1. In Telegram, message @BotFather, send /newbot, and copy the token it gives you. The bot is yours; InBrief never appears in Telegram and you can revoke the token from BotFather at any time.
2. Add the bot to the chat, group or channel you want updates in, and let it send messages. In a channel that means making it an administrator with posting rights. A bot cannot post anywhere it has not been added.
3. Find the chat's id. A public channel can use its @username instead. For a group, the usual way is to add a bot such as @userinfobot, or read the id out of the Telegram web client's URL.
4. Paste the token and the chat id here and save.

Confirming the chat

The bot posts a six-digit code into the chat. Open the chat, read it, and type it into Setup code within fifteen minutes. The screen counts your remaining tries; after too many wrong codes, or once the code expires, save the destination again to have a fresh one posted. Until the code is confirmed the destination is drawn as waiting, not as working, and nothing is sent to it.

If the bot cannot post the code at all, the save is refused with the reason: usually the bot has not been added to the chat, or has been added without permission to send messages. A rejected token, on the other hand, is regenerated in BotFather.

The fields

Deleting it properly

Deleting the destination here removes the token from InBrief; it does not remove the bot from the chat. Remove it in Telegram too, or revoke the token in BotFather, so a bot with nothing to say is not left sitting in the group.

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