Tell people in the app they already have open

Teams who want records to announce themselves in Slack, Microsoft Teams or Telegram, and businesses that text customers and need to choose between RowFold's own texts and their own Twilio number.

  • Post to a Slack channel, a Teams channel or a Telegram chat from any automation
  • Text a customer from your own Twilio number or Messaging Service
  • Write each message with the record's own values
  • One automation can post to several apps at once
  • These steps send only; nothing is read back from the apps
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THE OPTIONS

Team chat and SMS, side by side

Slack

Post a message into a Slack channel whenever something happens in RowFold.

Actions
  • Send a Slack messagePosts a message to a channel. Invite the RowFold app to the channel first.
Everything Slack does

Microsoft Teams

Post a message into a Teams channel whenever something happens in RowFold.

Actions
  • Send a Teams channel messagePosts a message to a Teams channel, from the account that connected Teams.

Telegram

Push alerts to a Telegram chat or group through your own bot — free, no approval needed.

Actions
  • Send a Telegram messageSends a message to a Telegram chat, group or channel your bot is in.

Twilio

Text a customer straight from an automation, using your own Twilio number.

Actions
  • Send an SMSTexts a phone number from one of your Twilio numbers.
HOW TO DO IT

How to set it up

I want urgent jobs posted to a Teams channel

Teams posts come from the account that connected Teams, into one channel of one team. The channel's own link says which team and which channel, so the link is all you need to paste.

  1. Connect Microsoft Teams under Manage workspace, then Integrations Sign in as somebody who belongs to the team. Posts appear under that person's name, so a shared operations account reads better than a manager's.
  2. Copy the channel's link with Get link to channel It is on the channel's menu in Teams. The link carries both the team and the channel, so it is all the step needs.
  3. Create an automation that runs when A record matches conditions, with Priority is Urgent Matching conditions fires once, as the job becomes urgent, so a later edit to an urgent job doesn't post again.
  4. Add Do something in another app with Microsoft Teams Choose Send a Teams channel message, paste the link into Channel ID and leave Team ID blank. Write the message with tokens such as {{record.address}} and {{record.url}}.

You'll know it worked: Mark a test job urgent and watch the channel. If nothing appears, the run history names the reason; the commonest is an account that isn't a member of that team.

I want the field crew alerted on their phones through Telegram

Telegram suits crews who don't sit at a desk. Alerts arrive on their phones, and a Telegram bot needs nobody's approval before it can start posting.

  1. Create a bot with @BotFather and copy its token BotFather asks for a name and hands back a token. That token is the whole connection, so treat it like a password.
  2. Paste the token into the Telegram card and press Save & verify RowFold checks the token with Telegram before saving the connection, so a mistyped token is caught here rather than in the first run.
  3. Add the bot to the crew's group A bot can post only where it is a member. In a channel it must also be an admin.
  4. Add Do something in another app with Telegram and Send a Telegram message Put the group's id in Chat ID and write the message with the record's values. Keep it short enough to read on a lock screen.

You'll know it worked: Run the automation against a test job and check the group on a phone. A run that fails with a chat-not-found reason almost always means the bot isn't in that group yet.

I want customers texted from our own number

Twilio sends from a number your business owns, so customers see a sender they recognise and the cost stays on your Twilio account. It suits businesses that already text from Twilio.

  1. Paste your Account SID and Auth token into the Twilio card Both are on the Twilio console dashboard. The Account SID starts with AC.
  2. Add Do something in another app with Twilio and Send an SMS Set To to the record's phone field, including the country code, and From to one of your Twilio numbers or a Messaging Service id starting with MG.
  3. Write the text with the record's values Up to 1,600 characters. Carriers split a long text into parts of about 160 characters and Twilio bills each part, so short texts cost less.
  4. Decide how opt-outs are handled RowFold's STOP list applies to its own Send a text step, not to your Twilio number. Replies, STOP included, go to your Twilio account, so follow the consent rules that apply to any text you send from it.

You'll know it worked: Text your own phone first by pointing To at a test record with your number. The text should arrive from your Twilio number, and the run history should show the step with no error.

WHAT IT FIXES

The three things that actually go wrong

An alert works only in the app people actually watch. An office that lives in Teams gets nothing from a Slack integration, and a crew reading Telegram on their phones never sees a desktop notification.

The same automation can post wherever the team is: a Slack channel, a Teams channel, or a Telegram chat, group or channel. Each is a step, so one rule can tell the office in Teams and the crew in Telegram at once.

Teams and Telegram both want ids their apps keep out of sight, and a wrong id fails without much of a clue.

For Teams, paste the channel's link from Get link to channel and RowFold reads both ids out of it. Telegram needs the chat's id, or @name for a public channel, and your bot must be a member first. When something is wrong, the run history gives the app's reason.

Texting customers raises questions a chat alert doesn't: whose number the text comes from, who pays for it and what happens when somebody replies STOP.

RowFold's own Send a text step needs no setup. Texts come from RowFold's number, anybody who replied STOP is skipped and a text that would land in the night waits until morning. Connect Twilio instead when texts must come from your own number and go on your own bill.

One automation worth building

When a job is marked urgent…

  1. Post to the dispatch channel in Teams with the job's address and the customer's phone number
  2. Send the same line to the field crew's Telegram group
  3. Text the customer from your Twilio number to say someone is on the way
QUESTIONS

Before you start

Should I use Twilio or RowFold's own Send a text step?

Use RowFold's step unless you need your own number. It needs nothing connected, skips anybody who replied STOP and holds texts that would arrive at night until morning. Connect Twilio when texts must come from a number your customers already know, or when your business wants the messages on its own Twilio account and bill. Replies to your Twilio number go wherever that number is set up to send them, not to RowFold.

Which Teams ids do I need?

Only the channel's link. In Teams, open the channel's menu, choose Get link to channel and paste the whole link into Channel ID. RowFold reads the team and the channel out of it, so Team ID can stay blank. The account that connected Teams must be a member of that team, and posts appear under its name.

How do I find a Telegram chat's id?

For a public channel, use @ followed by its name. For a group or a private channel, add the bot first, then open api.telegram.org/bot followed by your token and /getUpdates in a browser. The chat's id is the negative number after "chat":{"id":. Telegram keeps those updates for about a day, so look soon after adding the bot.

How long can a message be?

Telegram takes up to 4,096 characters and Twilio up to 1,600. A longer message fails the step with the limit in the run history rather than being cut off somewhere you can't see. Slack and Teams take messages far longer than any alert should be. A text over 160 characters arrives as several parts and may cost more.

Can a message reach a private Slack channel?

Yes, once the RowFold app has been invited to it. A private channel is private to apps as well as people, which is the most common reason a correct automation posts nothing. The Slack page covers that and the other Slack jobs in more detail, including posting each client's work to that client's own channel.

Where to go next

Related

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Teams who run on Slack and are tired of finding out about the important record three days later, but who have also been burned by an integration that posted so often everybody muted the channel.

Send it from your own domain, with the file attached

Teams sending quotes, receipts, reminders and follow-ups from their records, who want each one to come from their own domain or a real person's mailbox, with the reply reaching whoever looks after that customer.

Summarise, sort and draft with the AI account you already pay for

Teams that already pay OpenAI or Anthropic and want records summarised, sorted and drafted inside their automations, on their own account, with their own choice of model and their own agreement with the provider.

Support knows the ticket. Nobody knows the customer

Teams running support in Zendesk who want to know which customers cost the most to serve, or whether the accounts about to renew are the ones raising the most tickets.

Describe yours and watch it build

There is no template to wait for. Type a sentence about what you run and RowFold assembles the tables, links, views and dashboard around it — then you change whatever does not fit.

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