Integration with Albato

What the Albato integration is and why you need it

Albato is a connector service that links BotMan with hundreds of other services (CRMs, Google Sheets, messengers, payment and ad systems) without any coding. The integration works both ways:

• from BotMan to other services — bot events (new subscriber, incoming message, tag added, payment) automatically trigger automations in Albato;
• from other services to BotMan — an event in any service can send a message, add a tag, write a field, run or stop a flow, and so on.

You can:

• pass new subscribers and leads to a CRM or Google Sheets — together with their tags and custom fields;
• trigger a bot flow on a payment or event in an external service;
• sync subscriber tags, fields, and statuses;
• collect notifications and analytics in one place.

The integration is especially useful for:

• managing a client base, leads, and orders;
• end-to-end “bot ↔ CRM ↔ spreadsheets” automation;
• passing payments and conversions to external systems;
• working without a developer.

How to connect Albato: step-by-step

The connection is based on a BotMan API key: you create a key in your account and enter it in Albato.

Step 1️⃣: Get your API key in BotMan

1. Log in to your BotMan account.
2. Go to the Integrations section.
3. Click “Connect API” — your personal API key will be created.
4. Copy the key.

🔒 The API key grants access to your account data — do not share it with third parties. You can re-issue the key if needed.

Step 2️⃣: Create the BotMan connection in Albato

1. In Albato, create a new automation (or open an existing one).
2. Choose the BotMan app as a trigger or action.
3. On the connection step, click “Add connection”.
4. Paste the key from Step 1 into the “API Key” field and save.

Step 3️⃣: Check the connection

If the key is correct, Albato creates the connection without errors. One connection can be reused in any number of automations — you don’t need to re-enter the key.

Triggers: which BotMan events start an automation

• New subscriber — a user subscribed to the bot for the first time.
• Incoming message — a subscriber messaged the bot.
• Subscriber updated — the subscriber’s tags, system or custom fields changed. The “Updated fields” field shows what exactly changed.
• Tag added — a tag was assigned to the subscriber.
• Payment received — the subscriber paid an invoice in the bot through a connected payment system.

Each trigger passes the event data (subscriber, channel, tag, payment, etc.) to the automation, which you can map into the next steps. Every trigger includes the “Subscriber ID” field — pass it to BotMan actions so they find the right subscriber.

Custom fields. In the New subscriber and Subscriber updated triggers, and in the Find subscriber and Get subscriber by ID actions, your account’s custom fields come as separate fields — with their BotMan names and matching types: number, date, date and time, yes/no, list. Subscriber tags come as a list of names. If a field is missing from the variables list, click “Update” in the “Custom fields” block of the automation step — Albato will load the current fields of your account.

⚠️ BotMan triggers work on paid plans only. When an automation starts, Albato subscribes to your account’s events, and event subscriptions are available on paid BotMan plans. On the Free plan, an automation with a BotMan trigger will not start.

Actions: what you can do in BotMan

Most actions need a “Subscriber ID” — the subscriber’s ID in BotMan, not the user’s ID in the social network. Take it from any BotMan trigger or from the Find subscriber action.

• Send message — send the subscriber a text, an attachment, or both. An attachment is an image, video, file or audio by a public http(s) link, up to 50 MB: BotMan downloads the file and sends it as an attachment. The message goes to the channel the subscriber came from. To send it later, fill in “Delay by” and “Time unit” (minutes, hours or days).
• Find subscriber — find a subscriber by a field value and get their data, tags and custom fields, including the “Subscriber ID”. Choose the field to search by (phone, email, username, ID in the social network, first name, last name) and enter the value — it must match exactly.
• Get subscriber by ID — get the same subscriber data by the “Subscriber ID”.
• Set system field and Clear system field — write or clear the first name, last name, phone, email, note or a UTM tag.
• Set custom field and Clear custom field — write or clear a custom field value; the field is picked from a list. For a list field, pass the option code, not its label. Multi-select fields are not filled by this action.
• Set global field — write a value to a global field shared by all subscribers of the account.
• Run flow — run a flow for the subscriber. The flow is picked from a list (its channel is shown next to the name) and must belong to the same channel as the subscriber. “Start step ID” is optional: leave it empty to start from the first step.
• Stop flow — stop a flow for the subscriber: its scheduled steps are cancelled. If the flow is not running for the subscriber, nothing happens.
• Start broadcast — start a broadcast picked from your account’s broadcasts. It is sent to the audience set in the broadcast.
• Add tag and Remove tag — assign or remove a tag; the tag is picked from your account’s tag list.

Flows of emulator channels cannot be run via the API, and emulator test subscribers are not found by search.

Example automation

Goal: when the “Paid” tag is added, save the subscriber to Google Sheets.

1. Trigger: BotMan → Tag added.
2. (Optional) filter by the needed tag.
3. Action: Google Sheets → Add row, mapping fields from the trigger.

🧠 Good to know

• One connection (one API key) serves any number of automations.
• Triggers fire only on an enabled automation; in test mode they work temporarily.
• Trigger data is available for mapping into all subsequent steps.
• If you pause an automation, Albato unsubscribes from BotMan events; when you start it again, the subscription is created anew.

🛠 Troubleshooting

• Вебхуки доступны на платном тарифе (“Webhooks are available on paid plans”) — an automation with a BotMan trigger does not start on the Free plan: event subscriptions are available on paid BotMan plans only.
• Не удалось проверить тариф для вебхуков, попробуйте позже (“Could not check the plan for webhooks, try again later”) — a temporary plan check failure; start the automation again in a couple of minutes.
• Subscriber with provided id was not found — there is no subscriber with this ID in your account. Pass the “Subscriber ID” field from a BotMan trigger or from the Find subscriber action, not the ID in the social network.
• Flow belongs to another channel than the subscriber — the selected flow is from another channel. Choose a flow of the channel the subscriber came from.
• Subscriber has blocked the bot or Chat with the subscriber no longer exists — the subscriber blocked the bot or the chat was deleted, so the message cannot be delivered.
• Message needs text or an attachment — the message has neither text nor an attachment: fill in at least one of them.
• Attachment could not be downloaded from the link — BotMan could not download the file. The link must be public (http or https) and point to a file up to 50 MB.
• Attachment needs a link to the file or Attachment type … is not supported — pick the attachment type from the list and enter the file link.
• Shift time requires a value and a unit… — for delayed sending, fill in both “Delay by” and “Time unit”.
• Field … cannot be changed via public API — this system field cannot be changed via the API. See the available fields in the list of the Set system field action.