Telegram

Each new submission is sent by your own Telegram bot to a chat, group or channel. You need the bot’s token and the chat’s id.

What gets sent

On Pro, every submission that reaches the inbox is sent, and so is one you mark as not spam; spam is never sent. The message has:

• the title New submission: <form name>
• each field’s name and value, leaving out fields hidden on the form’s Fields tab
• an Open in Formwire link to the submission
• the page it was sent from

Field values are whatever the visitor typed. Read them as text from a stranger, not as instructions.

1. Make a bot

1. In Telegram, open a chat with @BotFather and send /newbot.
2. Give the bot a name and a username ending in bot.
3. Copy the token it gives you. It looks like 123456789:AAE....

The token lets anyone act as your bot, so keep it out of your code and repos. If it leaks, send /revoke to @BotFather and paste the new token into Formwire.

2. Add the bot to the chat

• A group: add the bot as a member.
• A channel: add the bot as an administrator that can post messages.
• A private chat with you: open the bot and press Start (or send /start). A bot can’t message you until you do.

3. Find the chat id

Send a message in the chat (in a channel, post something), then open this address in your browser with your token in it:

https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/getUpdates

Find your message in the reply and read chat.id:

Part of the reply

{
  "message": {
    "chat": { "id": -1001234567890, "title": "Sales leads", "type": "supergroup" },
    "text": "hello"
  }
}

Groups and channels have negative ids, like -1001234567890; a private chat’s id is positive. A public channel can use its @username instead. If the reply is empty, send another message and reload.

4. Add it in Formwire

In the dashboard, open the form, then Settings, Integrations. Under Telegram, choose Add Telegram chat, give it a name you’ll recognise (such as Sales group), paste the bot token and the chat id, and save. It’s live at once.

Choose Send test to send a sample submission to the chat. A form can have several Telegram chats, and up to 10 integrations in all. Each one can be switched off and on, edited or deleted from the same list.

When a message fails

A failed message is retried automatically over a few hours. If five submissions in a row fail every retry, the chat is switched off and the workspace owners get an email. The last error shows beside it in the list; common causes are a bot removed from the chat, a channel bot that isn’t an admin, or a private chat that was never started. Fix it and switch it back on.

Each submission’s delivery list shows every message and its status, and you can retry a failed one from there.

With the API or MCP

Integrations can be managed with the API too. Create one with a type, a name and its config:

Add a Telegram chat

POST /v1/forms/{form_id}/integrations HTTP/1.1
Host: api.formwire.com
Authorization: Bearer fw_live_...
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "type": "telegram",
  "name": "Sales group",
  "config": { "bot_token": "123456789:AAE...", "chat_id": "-1001234567890" }
}

Method	Path	What it does
GET	/forms/{form_id}/integrations	The form’s integrations.
POST	/forms/{form_id}/integrations	Add one.
PATCH	/integrations/{integration_id}	Rename it, switch it off or on, or replace its settings.
DELETE	/integrations/{integration_id}	Remove it.
POST	/integrations/{integration_id}/tests	Send a sample submission to it now.

The bot token is never returned; config_hint shows the chat. One added or changed with an API key or through MCP sends nothing until a person confirms it in the dashboard, so an agent, or a prompt hidden in a submission, can’t send your submissions somewhere new without you.