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Posting to the channel chat

Each calendar with a Telegram channel wired up gets a 💬 chat panel at the bottom of its section on /coach/today. You can read the last 48 hours of channel posts there, and send a new one without leaving the page.

Channel chat panel with the post form

When to use this

  • “Weather report: blizzard, we’ll be in the lodge.”
  • “Lift 6 is broken, meet at base instead.”
  • One-off broadcasts where you want every family in the channel to see it fast.

For an event-specific message (e.g. “Training canceled tonight”), edit the event itself (cancel / time change / coach note) — those auto-post to the channel AND push to phones. Channel chat here is for ad-hoc broadcasts.

How to post

  1. Scroll to the chat panel for the calendar you want to reach.
  2. Type the message (free text, no template required).
  3. Tap Post to channel.

The post appears within a second in:

  • The Telegram channel itself (anyone subscribed sees it).
  • The chat panel on every family page (within the channel’s calendar).
  • No phone push. Families see it in Telegram itself (so they get Telegram’s own notification) and on their family page’s chat card. A push only fires when an admin types a message directly in the Telegram app.

What people see

The notification body is your message text trimmed to ~240 chars. The title shows your name (and the channel) so families know who posted.

If it doesn’t go

You’ll be told, and your draft stays in the box.

The commonest cause is a channel that’s configured but the bot hasn’t been added to — see Checking the Telegram channels. If an event covers several groups and only some have a working channel, you’ll see “Posted to 1 of 2” with the reason for the other, so you know one cohort didn’t get it.

Don’t do this

  • Don’t paste personally identifying info — Telegram channels are group-visible.
  • Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want screenshotted; Telegram users can save messages.

Follow-ups

Channels are admin-broadcast — only you and other coaches/admins can post. Parents can’t comment on a channel post. If you want a parent to get a follow-up, post a new message in the channel (every family with push enabled sees it) or message them directly.

Parents reach the coach by tapping a quick-message template on an event card (“Out sick”, “Running late”). Those are posted to the group’s Telegram channel and shown on the event card — they are not DMs, and every family on that channel can see them.