How to collect requests through a Telegram bot and notify the team at once

A Telegram bot for collecting requests is assembled in Lanka from a few steps: the bot asks for a name and a phone number, saves the answers to variables, offers the services as buttons and sends a notification to you, a channel or a group. The requests stay on the visitors' pages and can be downloaded as a file.

Assembling the flow

1. Create a flow with the /start command and a Message as its first step. Say what the bot helps with and what happens after a request.
2. Add an Ask a question step, "What is your name?", and put name in "Save to".
3. Add an Ask for a phone number step and save the answer to phone. The person sends the number with a button under the input field, or types it.
4. Add a "Message" saying "What are you interested in?" and press "Add button" for each service, "Consultation" and "Repair" for example.
5. Under each button add a Notify step. In "To" pick yourself, a channel or a group. In the text name the service and put in the user.name and user.phone.phone_number tokens: type "/" and pick the variable.
6. After the notification add a "Message" that confirms to the person that the request is in and says when to expect an answer.
7. Press "Publish" and leave a request yourself.

The person's conversation does not wait for the notification and goes on.

Where the requests are

• The notification reaches you in Telegram with the person's answers.
• In Visitors every person has a page with their saved name and phone variables and the whole conversation. From there you can write to them as the bot.
• The "Download" button in Visitors saves the list with the answers as an XLSX or CSV file.

If the person does not answer

Under the "Ask a question" and "Ask for a phone number" steps add the timeout branch ("No reply") and say how long to wait. When the time is up, the conversation goes down that branch, to a reminder for example.

FAQ

Where does a new request arrive?

In the chat picked in the "Notify" step: yours, a channel or a group. The text carries the person's answers as tokens.

Can a request be passed to another service?

Yes, with the Script step: it makes an HTTP request to a third-party API. The Scripts page describes its language.

Can the requests be downloaded as a file?

Yes. In Visitors set up the columns with the variables you need and press "Download": XLSX or CSV. For Google Sheets there is a live link, described on the Panels page.