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Bot setup is where you configure the bot for one channel: the message it opens with, the tappable prompts it offers, the menu it shows, and what it says when nothing else matches. It sits in the sidebar under Configurations → Bot Setup. One page, four different screens. Bot setup always shows the channel selected in the channel selector at the top. Switch the selector from WhatsApp to Live Chat and the page becomes something else entirely — a WhatsApp number and a website widget have almost nothing in common to configure. If you are looking at the wrong settings, you have the wrong channel selected, not the wrong page. Your selection sticks between visits.
Bot Setup isn’t available for this channel means exactly that. The page only exists for WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and Live Chat. Select one of those from the channel selector. If you select SMS or another channel, the page tells you the channel has no channel-specific bot setup. You also need access to integrations to see the sidebar item at all — ask a workspace admin if it isn’t there. See Team members.

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Bot setup and Automation are different jobs

They work together, and it helps to know which way round.

Automation

The flows themselves — the conversations you build step by step in the flow builder, and the keywords and triggers that start them.

Bot setup

The channel’s front door. What a first-time contact sees before any flow runs — the welcome, the ice breakers and the menu.
Bot setup is also a way into your flows. Ice breakers and persistent-menu items can each be set to Start flow, and the picker lists your active flows for that channel. That is how a first-time contact gets from a tap to a real conversation without typing a keyword.
There is no master on/off switch for the bot. Each feature has its own toggle — welcome, default reply, persistent menu. To stop the bot for one person mid-conversation, pause it on that contact from the Inbox, not here.

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What you configure, by channel

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WhatsApp

WhatsApp gets its own screen, WhatsApp Cloud API Configuration, with five tabs: WhatsApp does not use the welcome / default reply / persistent menu model the other channels share. Everything of that kind lives on Conversational Components instead: the welcome toggle, the ice breakers and the commands.
Message templates are not here. They have their own place in the sidebar — see Message templates.

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Facebook and Instagram

Both share one screen with four sections and a Live preview that shows how a first-time visitor sees the bot.
  • Welcome — the message a first-time contact opens with, and a toggle to turn it on.
  • Ice breakers — up to four suggested questions shown to first-time visitors. Each sends a Text reply or starts a flow. On Instagram they appear on mobile only.
  • Persistent menu — Show a persistent menu in the conversation, with submenus if you need them.
Saving pushes the ice breakers and menu straight to your connected Facebook Page or Instagram account. The welcome is pushed to Facebook only — Instagram has no Get Started or greeting to push it to. Turning the persistent menu off and saving removes it from Messenger or Instagram. If the sync fails, the page says so when you save — check Logs.
The fourth section, Default reply, has no effect on Facebook or Instagram. It saves, but nothing on those channels ever sends it. It is a Telegram feature — see below.

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Telegram

Telegram uses the same four sections with Telegram wording:
  • Welcome — Send a welcome message when someone taps Start (/start).
  • Default reply — Reply automatically when no keyword or flow matches. Write the message and choose Every time or Once per 24 hours per contact. Telegram is the only channel where this section does anything.
  • Ice breakers — suggested questions shown as quick-reply buttons under the welcome message. Tapping one sends its reply or starts a flow.
  • Persistent menu — each item becomes a /command in the bot’s ☰ menu next to the message box. Saving syncs the command list to Telegram.
Keep Telegram ice breakers to four. The page lets you add up to eight, but saving a fifth is rejected and you lose the edit. Four save reliably.

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Live Chat

Selecting a Live Chat widget turns Bot setup into the widget customizer — Live Chat widget — with a live preview beside the settings. The panels:
  • Widget, Design and Brand — the look, the Agent name, and the Greeting. Design → Version is worth a moment: Classic opens straight into the conversation, Home shows a landing screen with your channels first.
  • Layout — where the widget sits and how it presents.
  • Channels — deep links so visitors can move the conversation to WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram or Telegram. Lead with WhatsApp here; it is where most people would rather talk.
  • Behavior — Online, Status text, Launcher text, Offline message, Show typing indicator, up to six Quick replies, and the pre-chat gates: Require email before chat, Require name before chat, Require phone before chat and Require consent before chat.
  • Install — the one-line snippet to paste before </body> on every page you want the widget. Use Copy snippet.
  • Danger zone — Delete widget.
Deleting a widget removes the widget, its install snippet, and all of its conversations. This can’t be undone.
There is no persistent menu or ice breaker on Live Chat — Quick replies in Behavior do that job.

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Creating a Live Chat widget

This is the part that catches people out. Every other channel is connected from Integrations. A Live Chat widget is created here, in Bot setup, because there is no external account to connect — you are making the channel, not linking one.
1

Select Live Chat

Open the channel selector and pick Live Chat. With no widget yet, it takes you straight to Bot setup’s New Live Chat widget screen.
2

Name it

On New Live Chat widget, enter a Widget name — something like Website Chat. The name appears in your channel selector and the Inbox, so name it for where it lives if you might run more than one.
3

Create it

Select Create widget. You land on the customizer with everything above available.
4

Install it

Set the widget up, then open Install, use Copy snippet, and paste it before </body> on every page you want the widget on.
Once the widget exists, you can return to its settings from the channel selector, or from the widget’s own menu on the accounts page. Conversations land in your Inbox alongside WhatsApp and everything else. Full detail: Live Chat widget.

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No channels yet

If your workspace has no channels at all, Contacts, Broadcasts, Automation, Meetings and Growth show Connect a channel first instead of the page, with a Set up a channel button. That button brings you here — which is the right destination if you want a Live Chat widget, and the starting point for everything else via Channels. For WhatsApp, start at Connect WhatsApp.

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Where custom fields and tags went

They are no longer in Bot setup. They belong to the whole workspace rather than one channel, so they live in Workspace Settings now. See Tags and segments.
Only some of it is pushed out when you save. Facebook gets the welcome, ice breakers and menu; Instagram gets the ice breakers and menu; Telegram gets the menu, as its command list. If that push fails, the page tells you at the moment you save rather than failing quietly — the message points you at the logs. Open Logs and look for the sync entry. Everything else — the Telegram welcome, default reply and ice breakers — is handled by DMLY as messages arrive, so it never appears in Telegram’s own settings at all.
The active channel isn’t one Bot setup supports. Switch to WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram or Live Chat in the channel selector and it opens.