Telegram bot for obtaining
Provide your customers with the ability to download their certificates after entering personal information.
The Telegram bot will ask for personal information, such as an email address or name, and will deliver the appropriate files from the Drive. If there are multiple files, all files will be delivered.
Integration with Telegram is located in Integrations - Telegram bot.
Integration settings
- Activate Telegram bot.
This toggle enables or disables the use of the bot. When attempting to send a message to a disabled bot, the response will be "Bot is not working".
- Token
Token for access to the Telegram API. It must be obtained when creating a new bot. After entering the token and saving the data, the message "Bot successfully activated in Telegram API" should appear above the input field. This means that the token is correct and the bot has successfully passed activation in Telegram.
Creating a bot
First, register a new bot with the "father of all bots" - @BotFather - to get a token for working with the Telegram API. The registration process is easy and consists of several simple steps:
- Open a chat with @BotFather on Telegram;
- Next, type or choose the /newbot command;
- Then, send the desired name for the bot, for example "New Time Olympiad";
- Then, write the bot's username, by which it will be found through search. The new username must end with either "bot" or "_bot". For example, OlympNewTime_bot;
- Optionally, add a description for the bot. Do this by typing or choosing the /setdescription command and selecting the new bot. Then enter the text, and a short instruction with something like this:
Get your diplomas and certificates for participating in the "New Time" Olympiad. Just write your name and surname. You will receive your diploma or certificate in response. If the file is not found, check the accuracy of the name or contact us. If files will not be delivered by name, but through other data - this should be indicated. - Optionally, add a launch command. Do this by sending the /setcommands command, selecting the new bot and typing something like: "start - Launch" When the bot is opened, the "Launch" button will send the initial request.
- Optionally, add the bot's logo. There is a /setuserpic command for this.
- Messages
Messages that will be sent to the bot's interlocutor, and parameters for searching data. There are two options - using one or two messages.
Single message
It is possible to use only one message to search for files. After receiving data, a search will be made through the files, and when files that meet the search criteria are found, they will be sent to the visitor.
The easiest option is to ask for the name and surname. To do this, in the "Message" field, type the text "Write your name and surname". And in the "Variable 1" field - the variable that is listed in the documents, such as %full_name. Another option is to search simply by surname. To do this, select "first word" as the search type and the search will be made only by the first word of the specified variable. The email address would be %email.
Two messages
For greater security, two messages can be used. The bot will send files that match both requests.
For example, when creating files, you can add a password to the table, and the bot will ask for it first. Then - the name. If the password and name are found - the bot will send the files. The password can be sent to your clients using closed communication channels. It can be the same (or different) for everyone within one or several events.
To add a password to the table, add the %password variable in "Question 2". Then, in the document, click on an empty column and select this variable. Enter the password in this column.
In both requests, personal data for each file can be requested, which can be either written on the file itself or saved with the file.
- Search type
In this drop-down list, you can choose how precisely the variables are searched. It is possible to set the search to only the first word, for example by surname. This is useful if the files have inaccurate data (e.g. not everyone specified their name). If you ask the bot interlocutor to enter the full name, but the files have incomplete data, the file simply will not be found. However, by setting the search type to "by first word", the bot can ask the interlocutor to enter only the surname. In order to avoid sending data to people with the same surname, it is possible to set up a search by two parameters.
- File access. Restricting access to files that will be available through the bot. It is possible to specify multiple folders or select all files in the Drive. If the file is in a subfolder and the parent folder is specified in this field, it will still be available. The level of nestedness does not matter.