Contact Field: Auto-Retrieve and Store Channel Metadata as Custom Fields | Voters

Contact Field: Auto-Retrieve and Store Channel Metadata as Custom Fields

Business Problem:
Currently, channel metadata such as username or channel ID is not automatically retrieved or stored as custom fields in respond.io. 
Desired Outcome:
Enable respond.io to automatically retrieve channel metadata (e.g., username, channel ID) and store it as custom fields during contact creation or interaction.

December 21, 2022

Nabilah Binti Salleh

Merged in a post:

Cross-Bot Contact Deduplication Using Telegram User ID

Fahad Riaz

Hi respond.io team,
I'd like to submit a feature request around Telegram contact deduplication when multiple bots are connected to the same workspace.
The Problem
When a business connects two or more Telegram bots to respond.io and the same person messages both bots, respond.io creates two separate contact records. There is currently no way to automatically detect or prevent this duplication.
Why This Happens (and Why It's Solvable)
Every Telegram user has a permanent, unique numeric ID (user_id) that is included in every bot webhook payload — regardless of which bot receives the message. This ID never changes, unlike usernames or display names. It is also not dependent on the user sharing their phone number.
This means respond.io already receives the Telegram user_id from both bots. The information needed to deduplicate is already present — it just isn't being used as a matching key across contacts.
The Feature Request
Use Telegram user_id as a deduplication key across all connected Telegram bots in a workspace. If a contact with the same user_id already exists (from a different bot), link the new conversation to the existing contact rather than creating a new one.
Expose Telegram user_id as a visible contact field and as a variable available in Workflows, so teams can build their own deduplication or merge logic if needed.
Optionally: add a manual merge feature that consolidates two contacts and their full conversation histories into one record.
Why It Matters
Businesses running multiple Telegram bots (e.g. different bots per product line, language, or region) currently have no way to recognize when the same person has contacted them through different entry points. This creates fragmented customer histories, duplicate outreach, and inaccurate reporting. Phone-based deduplication doesn't solve this because most Telegram users never share their phone number.
This is a gap that affects any multi-bot Telegram setup and would be a meaningful differentiator for respond.io in the messaging CRM space.
Thank you for considering this.

March 9, 2026

Shi Hui

Merged in a post:

Contacts: Save Channel Contact ID as Contact Field

Jirachi Onovo

Although the source channel contact ID (e.g. Facebook profile link or Telegram ID or Whatsapp Phone) is available in the Channel section of the Contact details drawer, we want to save it as a contact field for the Contacts. This will allow us to identify the Contacts better.
So whenever a contact comes via a source channel, the info will be populated automatically. Such info is essential for us to backtrace the contact we chat with. 
Please consider adding this feature.  it is very useful info about the contact by his/her channel.

December 21, 2022

Shi Hui

Hi Jirachi Onovo, when a new Contact come by our platform, we will get their name and save it as the contact name ( if it is available). The contact ID of the channel will be captured too and you can find the information in the Contact Side Drawer > Channels tab. On hovering over a specific channel, you would be able to see the information captured from the channel.

Let me know if this is what you are looking for.😀

Jirachi Onovo

Shi Hui: Hi Shi Hui,
yes I saw you have the info but i can't saved it as a custom field to work on.  Is it possible to make it available to save into custom fields?
also, i noticed the id is the respond id.  do u have the source channel id?

Shi Hui

Jirachi Onovo: The one shown under the profile pic is the respond.io Contact ID, and the one in the channel payload is the Contact ID from the source channel.

To save the channel Contact ID as a custom field, you can update it manually or do it through API for now 🙂

Jirachi Onovo

Shi Hui: can send me info about how i can do it thru API?

Shi Hui

Hi Jirachi Onovo, you can first send API request to “List Contact Channels” endpoint to get the contact’s connected channels (which included the channel contact ID) then call “Update a contact” API to save the info as contact field. You can refer to our API docs - https://developers.respond.io/docs/api/c6e1aa937640e-contact for more information.

Do reach out to our support team at https://respond.io/contact if you need further help on this 😇.

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