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The dashboard chat is always available. A chat channel is an extra way to reach the same teammates from a chat app that you already use. Squad has three chat channels: Telegram, Discord, and Slack. All three are optional. You can connect them at any time. To open them, select Settings, then Apps, then the Telegram, Discord, or Slack tab. The owner and Administrators can open them. A Collaborator or a Viewer cannot.

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How a channel works

Every channel works with bots. You create the bot in the chat app, and you paste its token into Squad. Squad then sets up the bot on your cloud computer. The bot settings live there, and the channel screens read them from there. Each bot has three settings:
  • Answered by: the one teammate that answers the bot. The default is Your chief of staff. You can pick any other teammate. If the bot’s teammate was removed from the squad, the menu shows the teammate’s short ID and “(not in your squad)”, because the bot is still bound to that teammate on your cloud computer. Pick another teammate.
  • Who can message it: the list of people who can send the bot direct messages. Everyone else gets one answer with their own ID, and their message does not reach a teammate. See A message from someone not on the list.
  • Group or channel answers: whether the bot also answers in group chats or channels.
You can connect more than one bot, for example one bot for each teammate or one bot for each audience. Each bot has its own teammate and its own list. A running bot shows no status on its card. A bot that is not running shows Offline. A bot that is on but does not answer yet shows “Your squad starts answering in [Telegram, Discord, or Slack] once it finishes what it’s working on.” instead of Offline. This shows for a bot that you just saved while your squad is busy, for a bot that is still starting, and for every bot that is on while your cloud computer restarts its chat apps. While a bot is starting, the page reads the bots again by itself for a while, and the line goes away when the bot answers. See Limits and defaults. When you open the page again, it reads them again. A bot whose start failed shows Offline. The Telegram Main bot card does not show this line. On the Telegram tab, the Main bot card shows Not connected until you connect it. When you change a setting, the card shows Saving…. A switch moves only after your cloud computer has the change. For the owner and Administrators, a teammate can change these three settings when you ask, and remove a bot. The main Telegram bot’s list and teammate, and removing it, stay on its page. The main Discord bot cannot be removed. On Slack, it can also turn replies in threads on or off. Adding a bot needs its token, so you add bots yourself. A change from a teammate can wait until no teammate is working, and the earlier settings apply until then. The teammate says when it takes effect. See Telegram, Discord, and Slack. Teammates know which channels are connected, and which chats each bot reaches, from the people on its Who can message it list. A reply, a preview, or a reminder goes back to the chat where the person asked. When a teammate works on a task for a person who talks to your squad on one of these chats, it also sends what needs that person there, starts the message with its name, and notes it on the task. A teammate can also post to a connected channel by itself, for example when you ask your chief of staff to post a summary in a Slack channel. A reply from a teammate can carry a screenshot or another file that it made. When a file that the reply names is not there, or is in a folder that your cloud computer cannot send files from, the reply’s words still arrive, without that file. After them, one sentence for each reason names the files. A file that is too large or cannot be read is left to the chat app, and the reply can then still fail:
  • “I couldn’t attach chart.png because it’s saved in a folder I can’t send files from.” With more files: “I couldn’t attach chart.png and table.csv because they’re saved in a folder I can’t send files from.”
  • “I couldn’t attach chart.png because the file isn’t there.” With more files: “I couldn’t attach chart.png and table.csv because those files aren’t there.”
On a Claude Code account, a file that does not exist can also show as a line such as “(I couldn’t attach report.png.)”. The bots show no menu of commands in Telegram or Discord. To start a fresh conversation with the bot’s teammate, send /new or /reset. The teammate answers “Sure, starting fresh.”
Ask your chief of staff

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The three channels side by side

The how-to pages have the exact steps:

Connect Telegram

Connect Discord

Connect Slack

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Who can reach your teammates

The list under Who can message it controls direct messages on every channel. Groups and channels work differently on each chat app:
  • Telegram checks every sender, also in groups. In a group chat, the bot answers only people on its list. When you turn on group chats, you give no new person access.
  • Discord does not check senders in server channels. When server channels are on, the bot answers anyone who @mentions it in a server that it was invited to. To invite a bot, a person needs the Manage Server permission on that server.
  • Slack does not check senders in channels. When channels are on, the app answers anyone who @mentions it in a channel that it was invited to. Only people in a channel can invite the app to it.
When someone who is not on the list sends a bot a direct message, the bot answers once, and the message never reaches a teammate. The answer names no one and gives the sender their own ID, for example on Telegram: “I only reply to the people I work with, and this Telegram account is not on my list. If it should be, send the person who set me up your user ID:” and the ID. On Slack it says “this Slack account” and “your member ID”, and on Discord “this Discord account” and “your user ID”. This also happens when you write from a second account of your own. To let the person in, add the ID under Who can message it. The Telegram main bot answers only the owner’s ID. Groups and channels get no answer. For how often the bot answers, see Limits and defaults. So on Discord and Slack, the people who can add the bot to a server or channel decide where it works. If a bot must answer only the people on its list, turn off its server channels or channels. Then it answers direct messages only. The owner is always on the list of every Telegram bot and cannot be removed. When the owner changes their Telegram user ID, every bot’s list takes the new ID, and an ID that the owner entered as their own before is left off a list when you save it. Select Add anyway beside the list to add it. See Change your Telegram user ID. On Discord and Slack you are the first person on the list, but you can remove yourself when someone else is on it. A Discord or Slack list cannot be empty, because an empty list answers nobody.

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Chat channels and connected apps are different things

A chat channel is a way for you to talk to your teammates. A connected app is a tool that your teammates use to do work. See Connect apps. Slack is both, and you connect each one separately:
  • On Settings > Apps > Slack, you connect the Slack bot that you chat with. A note at the bottom of the tab says “Slack shows up in two places on purpose.”
  • On the Apps page, you give teammates Slack as a tool. With it, they can read channels and post messages as part of their work.
When Slack or Discord is connected as a chat channel, a teammate does not offer you a card to connect the same product as an app, unless you tell it that you want the app too.

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What channels do not do

  • Squad has no chat channel for WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, or Webex. These are only apps. Teammates can use them as tools after you connect them on the Apps page.
  • The Telegram main bot does not accept other people. To give someone access to a teammate on Telegram, connect an extra bot and add them to its list.
  • A channel does not give anyone the dashboard. To let a person sign in to the dashboard, invite them to your squad. See Invite people to your squad.
  • Do not share a bot between squads. If you have more than one squad, create a new bot for each one. On the Telegram tab, Squad refuses a bot that another squad or another app reads at that moment. See Add an extra bot. Discord and Slack have no such check.
  • A change on a channel screen does not restart your cloud computer. Only the chat app that you changed reconnects, with all of its bots. For example, a change to one Telegram bot reconnects every Telegram bot. It waits until your squad finishes its current work. Until then, the previous settings still apply, including who can message which bot.

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Messages on every channel screen

The Telegram, Discord, and Slack screens share these messages. Each channel page lists its own messages too.