Telegram Messenger

Get every Blesta notification pushed to your Telegram chat, group or forum topic within seconds of it happening.

What it does

Your team and your clients rely on Blesta's emails to know when an invoice is due, a service is suspended, or a new ticket needs attention - but email gets missed, filtered, or read hours late. The Telegram Messenger posts those same notifications straight into a Telegram chat, group or channel through your own bot, so the people who need to see them do, in real time, on the app they already have open. Set it up once with a bot token and a chat to post to, and every notification Blesta already sends is delivered to Telegram alongside (or instead of) email.

Key features

• Notifications Delivered by Your Own Bot: Create a bot with BotFather, paste in its token, and Blesta notifications are posted to the chat, group or channel you choose. HTML from the notification template is converted to clean plain text first, so messages read properly on mobile.
• Detect Chat in One Click: No hunting through raw API responses for a chat ID. Enter your bot token, click Detect Chat, and the messenger lists the chats and groups your bot has recently seen, with a button to fill in each one.
• Deliver Into a Forum Topic: On a forum-enabled supergroup, enter a topic ID and notifications land inside that specific topic instead of the general channel, so billing alerts stay separate from everything else your team discusses.
• Silent Notifications: Tick one box to deliver messages without sound or vibration, ideal for high-volume, low-urgency alerts that should be readable but not interrupt anyone.
• One-Click Connection Test: Test Connection validates the bot token first, names the bot it found, and then delivers a real test message, so a bad token is reported differently from a bad chat ID. Nothing is saved by running a test.
• Long Notifications Delivered in Full: A notification too long for one message is split across consecutive messages instead of being cut short, so nothing is silently lost off the end.
• Encrypted Bot Token: The bot token is stored encrypted and is never displayed back on the settings page, so the credential that controls your bot is neither sitting in the database in plain text nor readable off the screen by anyone who can open your admin area.
• Full Request Logging: What it sends and what comes back is recorded in Blesta's own log, with credentials never written to it, so you can see exactly what happened without leaving your admin area.
• Built-In Demo Mode: A built-in Mock API mode runs the whole extension from bundled sample data, so you can try every screen and action before you have a bot token at all.
• Fully Translatable: Every staff-facing label ships in editable language files, ready to translate into any language or reword to match your brand.
• Per-Company Configuration: Configure it independently for each brand on a multi-company install, so every company runs with its own bot and chat.

Installing Telegram Messenger

Before you start

• If you are on the leased (subscription) licence, the Blesta Club Subscription Manager must be installed and your subscription active. The owned and owned-source licences have no such requirement.

1. Upload the files

Upload the extension folder into your Blesta installation so it lands under your Blesta directory at:

components/messengers/telegram/

For example, on a typical install: /var/www/html/blesta/components/messengers/telegram/

2. Install it in Blesta

1. Log in to your Blesta admin area with a staff account that has the Messengers permission (under the Settings section in Manage Staff Groups).
2. Go to Settings > Company > Messengers and click the Available tab.
3. Find Telegram in the list and click Install.

3. Configure it

1. From the Installed tab, click Manage next to Telegram.
2. Create a bot and get its API Token. Follow the Telegram guide to create a bot with BotFather, then paste the token it gives you into the API Token field.
3. Find your Chat ID. Send a message to your bot, or add it to the group or channel you want notifications in, then click Detect Chat. The messenger lists every chat your bot has seen recently with a "Use" button that fills in the Chat ID for you - no manual lookup needed.
4. Optionally set a Topic ID if you want notifications delivered into a specific topic of a forum-enabled supergroup, and tick Silent Notifications if you want messages delivered without sound or vibration.
5. Click Test Connection to check your bot token and chat in one step. It validates the token first, then delivers a real test message and reports the result on the page - nothing is saved by running a test.
6. A Enable Mock API checkbox is also available: turn it on to try every field and button using bundled sample data, with no bot token needed and nothing actually sent to Telegram. Leave it off for real use.
7. Click Update Settings to save.
8. Go to Settings > Company > Messengers > Messenger Configuration and assign Telegram to the SMS message type (currently the only message type Blesta dispatches to messengers).
9. Go to Settings > Company > Messengers > Message Templates and make sure the notifications you want delivered to Telegram are enabled.

You're ready to go - see the usage guide for a walkthrough of day-to-day use.

Updating Telegram Messenger

Upgrading works just like installing: upload the new files over the old ones, then run the upgrade from the same page you installed it on.

1. Back up your current extension files first - good practice before any upgrade.
2. Upload the new version over the existing folder, replacing the old files.
3. Log in to your Blesta admin area and go to Settings > Company > Messengers.
4. Find Telegram and click Update to run the upgrade.

Version-specific notes

• v3.0.0: Built for Blesta 6.0 and newer and no longer runs on Blesta 5 - upgrade Blesta first, or keep the last 2.x release if you must stay on Blesta 5. Nothing else changes on update: your saved settings carry over exactly as they are, and the Manage page only picks up the Blesta 6 admin styling.
• v2.0.0: New optional settings appear on the Manage page - Topic ID (deliver into a forum topic instead of the main channel) and Silent Notifications (deliver without sound or vibration). Both default to off/blank, so nothing changes for you unless you set them. A new Detect Chat button can look up your Chat ID automatically. The API Token field no longer displays your saved token - leave it blank when saving to keep it, and only re-enter it to change it or to run Detect Chat / Test Connection.
• v1.1.0: The old "Send a test Message" checkbox was replaced with a Test Connection button that reports success or failure on the page without saving your settings. An Enable Mock API checkbox was added for testing and demos - leave it off for real use. No configuration changes are required to upgrade; your existing API Token and Chat ID carry over.

Otherwise, this upgrade is drop-in - no other steps are needed beyond replacing the files and clicking Update.

Using Telegram Messenger

For your staff

Manage Telegram (settings)

Go to Settings > Company > Messengers, and click Manage next to Telegram in the Installed list. This page (headed "Manage Telegram") holds every setting:

• API Token - the bot token BotFather gave you. It is stored encrypted and is never displayed again once saved, so the field looks empty every time you return to the page. Leave it blank to keep the stored token; only type in it to change the token, or to run Detect Chat or Test Connection.
• Chat ID - the chat, group or channel notifications are posted to. A numeric id (e.g. -1001234567890 for a group) or a public channel username (e.g. @mychannel).
• Topic ID - optional. In a forum-enabled supergroup, notifications are delivered into this specific topic instead of the group's general channel, so billing alerts stay separate from everything else your team discusses. Leave blank for the main channel.
• Silent Notifications - when ticked, messages arrive without sound or vibration. Useful for high-volume, low-urgency notifications.
• Enable Mock API - a demo and testing mode. The messenger answers from built-in sample responses instead of contacting Telegram, so you can try every field and button without a bot token. Leave this off in production: while it is on, nothing is actually delivered to Telegram, even though the log records the message as sent.

Detect Chat and Test Connection

Two buttons sit below the fields. Neither saves your settings - click Update Settings once you're happy with them.

• Detect Chat - enter your API Token and click it, and the messenger lists the chats, groups and channels your bot has seen recently, each with a "Use" button that fills in the Chat ID field for you. If nothing is listed, send a message to your bot (or add it to your group) and click it again.
• Test Connection - checks the API Token first, names the bot it found, then delivers one test message to your Chat ID. A bad token and a wrong Chat ID are reported differently (for example "Telegram rejected the bot token" versus "Telegram rejected the message"), with the reason Telegram gave shown as-is.

Both buttons work in Mock API mode with no token at all, which is the quickest way to see what the messenger does before you create a bot.

Choosing which notifications are delivered

1. Under Settings > Company > Messengers, click Messenger Configuration and assign Telegram to the SMS message type - currently the only message type Blesta dispatches to messengers. Without this step, Telegram never sends anything.
2. Click Message Templates and make sure the notifications you want delivered are enabled. Typical examples include account registration, invoice delivery and reminders, quote delivery and approval, and service creation, suspension and unsuspension - along with any notifications your installed plugins add, such as Support Manager's ticket assignment and update notices.

Good to know

• A notification longer than Telegram's 4096-character limit is split across consecutive messages instead of being cut short, so nothing is silently lost off the end.
• HTML in a notification template is converted to plain text before sending - tags, entities and extra whitespace are cleaned up so the message reads properly on mobile.
• Every send is recorded in Blesta's own messenger log, with the bot token never written to it.
• If Support Manager ticket notifications aren't arriving, check that the relevant department has auto-response notifications enabled, and that the assigned staff member has the ticket priorities they want notified set on their profile.