Telegram Messenger
With StormVue Data Server you can get instant close lightning alert and all clear notification messages to your mobile device or computer by using the free Telegram Messenger service.
Telegram is available on Android and iPhone/iPad, as a native Windows, Mac OS and Linux application and even as a web browser app. More information can be found on the Telegram website.
This section of the manual will show you how to configure Telegram option in StormVue Data Server and also how to connect your mobile device to a lightning alert bot that you create. Screenshots from the Telegram mobile app are taken from an Android phone but the configuration steps are same on all platforms.
Bots are Telegram services that receive alert messages from Data Server and forward these to your mobile device. The content of these alert messages are identical to the E-mail alerts and configured under E-mail settings.
🔥 TIP! You can include web links - URLs - in the alert messages template text with no special formatting. Links will be automatically parsed and will enable you to open a web page directly from the Telegram alert notifications.
Configuration
Your first step is to install Telegram by downloading from the app store for your device. After this has been done open Data Server configuration options (Ctrl+C) and select Telegram messenger tab.
Here we see two fields that require some data. Bot token is an unique identifier string that identifies your bot. Destination ID is a unique number that identifies the chat your bot will use. It is sometimes also referred to as chat ID. These two fields will be different for different bots. You can only use one bot at a time in Stormvue Data Server. Please note that you cannot use the identifiers or numbers shown in our examples.
Obtaining a Bot token
To create a bot we need to ask BotFather, the father of all Telegram bots.
1. Make sure Telegram is installed and that your mobile device or PC is connected to the Internet. Open the following link in a web browser on your mobile device or PC: http://telegram.me/botfather
This will open the Telegram app and initiate a chat with BotFather. First we need create our bot. In the chat dialog, type:
/newbot
2. BotFather will reply by asking you to name your bot. We'll call our bot stormgen3 but you have to choose a unique name for your own bot. This identifier will be shown in the Telegram contact list, once you have added it there. Choose a relevant bot name, enter it in the chat dialog and send.
3. You will now be asked to provide a username for your bot. The username must end in 'bot'. We will name ours stormgen3_bot but you must choose a different name. If the name is already taken you will be notified and asked to provide a different name. Enter your chosen bot name in the chat dialog and send.
4. If the bot was created successfully you will receive a long message with some general information and your Bot token (after "Use this token to access the HTTP API:") which is a long text string consisting of numbers and letters.
🔥 TIP! If you are on mobile, to facilitate copy-pasting the rather complex Bot token into StormVue Data Server settings, copy the token from the Telegram message, paste it into a new e-mail and send the e-mail to an account that is accessible on your Windows PC where StormVue Data Server is installed. Then simply copy the token from the e-mail and proceed with step 5.
5. Paste your Bot token into the Bot token textbox in Data Server and click Autofill ID button to obtain your Destination ID automatically.
💾 Click Apply button after changing settings to save your configuration!
6. As a spam prevention measure, Telegram does not allow bots to initiate chats with users. You must be the one starting the chat with your newly created lightning alert bot. To do this, go back to the device web browser where your Telegram app is installed and enter the URL:
https://telegram.me/stormgen3_bot
👉 NOTE! The blue colored text in the URL above must be the username of your own bot.
A webpage will open prompting you to send a message to your bot. Tap Send message to initiate the chat.
7. Back to the Data Server application, at this point you can send a test message by clicking the Test send button. Data Server will notify you that a test message was sent or, if an error occurred while trying to send the message, the error message will be shown instead.
If you followed the steps outlined above you should shortly get a Telegram notification on your mobile device or PC where Telegram app is running.
🔥 TIP! Other people can receive alerts from your lightning detection system by simply adding your alerting bot to their contacts as outlined in step 6. This assumes that your Data Server Telegram alerting is activated and the bot is configured properly.
Enabling Telegram alert messages in Data Server
The final step is to enable Telegram alerting and all clear notifications which is done under the Alarm settings tab, where you also set the close alarm distance and other settings common to E-mail and Telegram alerting. General function of Telegram alert messaging is essentially identical to E-mail alerts.