The 1:1 Telegram bot is great for individual customers, but a lot of B2B support happens in shared Telegram groups — one chat with your client's whole team, where several issues run in parallel. The Telegram Group channel is built for exactly that: one bot serves any number of groups, each group becomes a single conversation in your inbox, and the AI automatically splits the traffic into per-topic threads.
Every thread gets its own title, status, priority and assignees, so your team works topic by topic — while the client's team just keeps chatting in their group as usual.
Create the channel
- Go to Admin → Projects → [Your Project] → Channels and create a new channel of type Telegram Group (multi-thread).
- Paste a bot token from @BotFather. You can create a fresh bot, or reuse the bot that already runs your 1:1 Telegram channel or your helpdesk notifications — when you paste a token Chatonio already knows, it shows which roles that bot is shared with. A bot can only be used within one project.
- Once the token is accepted, the channel page shows a connect command that works for every group you want this bot to serve.
Connect your groups
- Add the bot to the Telegram group as a member.
- Let it read group messages: open @BotFather, run /setprivacy, pick your bot and choose Disable. (Making the bot a group admin works too.)
- Post the connect command from the channel page — /connect followed by your secret — in the group. The bot replies in the group to confirm.
Repeat this for as many groups as you need — the secret is reusable. Everything you've connected appears in the Connected groups list on the channel page.
Auto-accept mode
The How new groups bind setting controls what happens when the bot hears from a group it has never seen:
- Require connect secret (default, recommended) — new groups stay silent until someone posts the /connect command, so you decide which groups get in.
- Auto-accept any group — any group the bot is added to is connected automatically on its first message. Faster onboarding, but anyone who knows the bot's username can start a conversation — keep the username private in this mode.
One note: a bot that has only a 1:1 channel (no group channel) politely explains that it works in direct messages and leaves the group.
How threads work
- Each connected group is one conversation, and every message shows which group member wrote it.
- The AI reads each incoming message and routes it into the matching thread — or starts a new thread with a short auto-generated title. If a group member uses Telegram's reply feature, their message always lands in the thread of the message they replied to.
- Threads use the same statuses as conversations — New, Escalating, Processing, Waiting, Resolved, Closed — plus their own priority and assigned operators.
- The AI answers in threads it still owns (New or Escalating). Its replies are sent as Telegram replies, so each topic stays visually grouped inside the group chat.
Replying as an operator
- Open the conversation: the Threads sidebar lists active threads. Click one to see only its messages, or switch to All messages for the chronological view.
- Replies always belong to a thread — pick the thread first, then type. Your message is delivered as a Telegram reply inside that topic.
- Claim a thread to take it over: it switches to Processing and the AI goes silent in that thread while it keeps handling the others. Sending a message into an unclaimed thread claims it automatically.
- Set status and priority per thread, and add extra operators when a topic needs more hands. An escalated thread notifies your team just like a normal escalation.
- Resolve a thread when the topic is done. If the client comes back to it later, a fresh thread is created instead of reopening the old one.
Moving a misfiled message
If a message ends up under the wrong topic, open its Move action, pick the destination thread — or choose Create a new thread and give it a title. The same action works for messages left without a thread (Unclassified).
Managing groups and the secret
- Rotate secret — generates a new connect command. The old one stops working immediately; already-connected groups are not affected.
- Stop accepting new groups — clears the secret entirely. Existing groups keep working; rotate the secret later when you want to add more.
- Disconnect a group — removes a single group from the Connected groups list. Conversation history is preserved, but the group has to post /connect again to send new messages.
- Remove bot — detaches the bot from the channel entirely.
New to Telegram bots? See Connecting a Telegram bot for the BotFather basics.