Working with Chats¶

Bots and accounts connected to Hotline can be in Telegram chats of different types: groups, topic groups and channels. This allows organizing communication monitoring, team prompt responses and content posting on behalf of connected bot or account.

Chat Work Features¶

When activating MONITOR_GROUPS or MONITOR_CHANNELS parameters in connection settings, the following functions become available:

• Receiving messages from chats to corresponding topic of Hotline backend group
• Sending messages to chats on behalf of connected bot or account through backend group
• Joining chats by link and creating new chats with the /new command
• Managing chat members when the connected bot or account has the required administrative permissions
• Keyword filtering — automatic broadcast activation when specified words appear in parameters GROUPS_KEYWORDS and CHANNELS_KEYWORDS

Connection Features¶

Adding to Chats¶

/new CHAT_USERNAME
or
/new https://t.me/CHAT_USERNAME    
or
/new https://t.me/+INVITE_HASH

Managing Group Chats¶

From the corresponding group dialog topic in the backend group, you can manage the original chat on behalf of the connected bot or account:

The USER parameter can be a username, a phone number in international format, or *USER_ID, for example: /invite example_user, /invite +79991234567, or /invite *123456789.

The QUERY parameter is an optional search string that matches a member's name or username. The /members command without a parameter returns up to 200 members, while /members QUERY returns up to 200 matches.

The commands work for regular group chats and topics in supergroups. The connected bot or account must have the required Telegram permissions for the selected action.

Only operators listed in the EXTENSIONS_ALLOWED parameter can use these commands. If the parameter list is empty, the commands are available to all backend group operators.

Topic Activation and Management¶

With active MONITOR_GROUPS or MONITOR_CHANNELS, a topic for the chat on the backend group side is created and activated automatically:

• When mentioning (@mention) the connected account or bot in chat
• When replying (reply) to a message from the connected account or bot
• When keywords appear from parameters GROUPS_KEYWORDS or CHANNELS_KEYWORDS
• On any incoming message with active parameter LEAVE_CLOSED

Broadcast Management¶

Continuous broadcast of all messages from chat to backend group topic is conducted only when the topic has a status different from closed (yellow 🟨 or purple 🟪, activated by /wait or /hold commands).

If you close the topic with the /close command, message broadcast to it stops.

Learn more about topic statuses

Chat Filtering by Keywords¶

Topics for chats can be created and activated automatically when messages with specified keywords appear in them.

Keywords and rules for filtering are set in parameters GROUPS_KEYWORDS or CHANNELS_KEYWORDS.

As a unified set of stop-words, the parameter RESTRICTED_KEYWORDS_FRONTEND may be useful.

Working with Activated Topics¶

When a topic is activated by keywords:

1. All messages from the chat are broadcast to the topic, starting with the message containing the keyword
2. Broadcast messages show profile links of authors
3. Operators can respond in chat on behalf of bot/account
4. Can write to DM of message author
5. Or passively follow the conversation without participation

To stop the broadcast, send the /close command in the topic.

Used Parameters¶

Activating message monitoring from groups or channels:

Disabling greeting:

Disabling automatic topic closing:

Keywords and rules for filtering are set in parameters:

Hiding information about chat participants from operators:

Controlling outgoing messages by keywords:

Controlling incoming messages by keywords:

Practical Usage Scenarios¶