Telegram: Connecting your account

Skill level: Easy

Time required: 3 minutes

• Telegram account
• Smart tapping on the commands generated

How to establish a connection with Telegram

You can click the following preview to watch a video of this article or continue with the guided walk-through:

To connect your Telegram account with Quickwork, you'll need an API Key. To fetch it, follow these steps:

1. Open your Telegram app on your Android/iOS device and search @botfather.
2. Open the BotFather app and tap START. If you had generated the keys earlier, you'll get the RESTART option. Tap it and proceed:
   
   
3. An automated bot response will appear on your screen. Look for the /newbot command and tap it:
   
   
4. As soon as you tap the /newbot command, the BotFather app will ask you to choose a name for your bot, say Samplebot.
5. Once the bot name is specified, you'll be asked to provide a unique username for the bot. The username must end with the bot keyword. E.g., A12BCDbot.
6. The BotFather will then send you a congratulations message containing the HTTP API of your Telegram account. The HTTP API is the API key using which you can establish the connection:
   
   
7. Copy this HTTP API token and go to Quickwork.
8. Choose the Telegram app from the App drop-down field under Trigger or Steps section.
9. Select the trigger or action of your choice.
10. To establish a connection, click on Link an account and enter the copied HTTP API in the API Key field:
    
    
11. Now click the Link account button. Your connection will get established.

How to start a bot

1. Now, go to your Telegram Android/iOS app and search the bot that you have connected with Quickwork. Specify the username of the bot to search.
   
   Note: In my case, the username of the bot is A12BCDbot and the bot name is SampleBot.
   
   
2. Tap on it and tap the START button. Simply send a Hello to the bot. The bot will respond with the text message specified in the Telegram action.
   

Note: You can use the Telegram web application to do the above-mentioned process. However, the Telegram web application has some performance issues and requires very high internet bandwidth.