Help›Message chains

What a message chain is and why you need one

A series of messages that goes out day by day after someone finishes your bot.

Someone writes to your bot, gets what they came for — and disappears. A message chain keeps the conversation going: it writes to them day after day on its own — one message today, the next one tomorrow, a third one three days later. You write the messages and the pauses once; everything after that runs by itself.

Where it lives

A chain is a bot like any other: it sits in Bots and is turned on and off the same way — the Turn on and Turn off items in the ⋯ menu of its card.

To create one: Bots → the round + button in the top right → Create a bot → the Message chain card (its subtitle reads “Messages by the day after someone finishes a bot”, category “Broadcasts”). A form opens.

On the free plan the card carries a “Pro” badge: you can build and save the chain, and it is switched on with the Pro plan. Tapping the badge explains this in more detail.

What a chain is made of

Name and description. The About the bot step, right after the intro. The name is “Message chain” by default and can be rewritten; only you see it — in the bot list and on the person’s card.
The bot that sends the messages. A step of its own, Bot. Chains work in Telegram only and write to users as the bot you pick.
Triggers — what starts it. A list: “finished your bot”, “got a label”, “wrote to the bot”. Any one of them fires and the user is in. Details: What starts a chain.
Other chains. A step of its own: whether the other chains this person is getting messages from should stop when this one starts.
Messages. A list where each message has its own pause, its own conditions and its own text, image and buttons. Details: Chain messages.

The steps of the form

Message chain — the intro: what you are about to build, with a sample conversation.
About the bot — the name and the description.
Bot — the sending bot.
What starts it — the list of triggers.
Other chains — whether this chain stops the person’s other chains when it starts.
Messages — how many, when and what is in them.
All set — check everything and create.

The counter at the top reads “Step 2 of 7”. When you open an existing chain for editing, there is no intro step: editing starts straight at About the bot, and the counter shows six steps.

The All set step spells out what happens next: “Check the settings and press “Create”. The chain turns on right away.” While editing the text is different: “Check the changes and press “Save”” — and that is where the Who the edit applies to choice sits (Edits, pausing and switching back on).

After you press “Create”

The form closes and you stay in Bots — the card of the new chain is already in the list. Nothing takes you anywhere else.

On the free plan the chain is created switched off: you can build and save it now, while chain messages are sent on the Pro plan. You can switch it on once Pro is connected.

The chain’s page

Tapping a chain’s card in Bots opens its page. It holds:

the name of the chain in the header, an Edit button and the ⋯ menu — that is where you switch the chain on and off (on a phone, Edit is an item of that menu);
a chart for the chosen period (7, 30 or 90 days, by day or by week), just like a bot’s: how many people joined the chain, how many finished it and the conversion; the labels above the chart are the period totals, tapping a label hides its line;
under the chart — a day-by-day log: who got which message and when. Anything that did not arrive is marked “not delivered”. Tapping a row opens that person’s card.

Until someone has entered the chain and it has sent anything, the same “No data yet” card as a bot’s stands instead of the chart and the log: the chain’s state, when it was created and which account the messages go from. Below it: “Sends and conversion will show up here as soon as the first message goes out.” If people have already entered but no message has gone out yet, the log is replaced by the line “Nothing has been sent yet.”; if the chain is off, “The chain is turned off.” is added.

A chain has no Make a duplicate item in the ⋯ menu: the copy would be an empty card without the messages themselves. If you need a similar chain, create a new one.

Chain or one-off broadcast

Number of messages. A chain holds as many as you need, up to twenty; a broadcast is exactly one.
Timing. In a chain the clock starts when the user enters it, so everyone has their own schedule. A broadcast goes to everybody at once — now or at a set time.
Who gets it. A chain picks up users who match a trigger after you turn it on. A broadcast takes the users who match right now.

One-off broadcasts live in Chats: One-off broadcast.

What the user sees

Ordinary messages from your bot — nothing marks them as a mailing. On your side, in Chats, such a message is signed “Chain «Name»”. That is also where you see if a message did not reach the user, and why.