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Documentation

Getting started

From zero to your first live chat in about five minutes. You need a website you can add a script to, and a Telegram account.

1. Sign up

Go to the sign-in page and enter your email address. We send you a magic link. Click it and you are in. There is no password to remember, and the same page signs you in next time.

2. Prepare your Telegram group

Create a new Telegram group, or pick an existing one. Then turn on Topics:

  1. Open the group and tap its name at the top.
  2. Tap Edit, then find Topics and switch it on.
  3. Add your teammates to the group. Anyone in the group can answer visitors.

Turning on Topics can upgrade a basic group to a supergroup, which changes its internal id. TicketDM handles that automatically.

3. Connect the group

  1. In the dashboard, start the connection wizard. It gives you a button that opens Telegram.
  2. Choose your group and add the TicketDM bot (@topicdesk_thebot).
  3. Make the bot an admin with Manage Topics and Pin Messages. These let it create one topic per conversation and pin a ticket summary at the top.

The dashboard updates by itself. When it shows Connected, the bot posts a welcome message in your group with a sample ticket so you can see how things look.

If the dashboard does not move on, see troubleshooting.

4. Install the snippet

Copy the script tag from your dashboard and paste it into your website, just before the closing </body> tag. It looks like this:

<script src="https://ticketdm.com/w.js" data-key="pk_live_…" data-cfasync="false" async></script>

Your key is shown in the dashboard. We recommend adding your website's domain to the allowed sites in the widget settings. Once you list sites, the widget only loads on those.

Using WordPress, Shopify, Webflow or another platform? Follow the platform install guides.

5. Send a test message and reply

  1. Open your website and click the chat button in the corner.
  2. Send a message. A new topic appears in your Telegram group within a moment, named like #1 · Blue Otter · Hello.
  3. Open the topic and type a reply, as you would in any chat. The visitor sees it in the widget within a second.

When the conversation is finished, type /close. See all the Telegram commands.

What next

  • Set your agent name with /me Your Name, so visitors see a name instead of "Support".
  • Set office hours and an away message in the dashboard.
  • Send different websites to different teams: add another group under Telegram groups, then pick a group for each website under Websites. You can connect up to 10 groups.
  • Pass the logged-in user's name and email to the widget with the JavaScript API.
Install the widget →