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External channels

External channels connect provider messaging apps to the same conversations and contacts used by the website widget. Customers can reach your business wherever they already are, while operators handle every conversation in one place inside Evercom.

Supported channels​

  • MAX — connect a bot by token, receive text and files, and reply from Evercom. See MAX setup.
  • Telegram — receive Telegram bot messages and reply to them directly from Evercom.
  • Instagram — prepared boundary for Instagram messaging as a connected customer channel.
  • VKontakte — community messages and discussions of community posts, with replies from Evercom.
  • WhatsApp — reserved provider path for customer messaging through WhatsApp Business APIs.

How channels work​

All channels share one model. Provider webhooks are normalized into the same contact, conversation, and message model used by the website widget, so inbound messages from any source appear as familiar conversations. Deduplication prevents the same provider message from being written twice. Outbound replies are sent back to the customer through provider-specific workers.

Detailed setup and behavior for each provider live on the per-provider pages.

VK communities​

VK sign-in returns you to Evercom, where a modal lists the communities you administer. Select communities, review the requested permissions, and approve them in a separate VK window. The original channel page and its modal stay in place. The group list appears once it is ready; preparing or completing authorization does not replace the dialog with an empty loading window. If the browser blocks the authorization window, click the continue action offered inside the current dialog.

If community authorization succeeds but callback verification is still pending, use Retry connection on the community. This repeats delivery setup with the saved authorization; signing in again is needed only when VK permissions or the token are no longer valid. Closing or reloading the main browser tab does not make a pending connection count as connected.

Connected communities receive messages and replies sent from VK in the same conversation. Operators can send text, photos and documents. Incoming voice messages can be played from the conversation after the attachment is loaded. Comments under community posts appear as a separate discussion per post using the same view as Instagram. Reply to a selected comment to preserve its thread. See VKontakte for comment history and attachment support.

Signing in and receiving incoming messages use different addresses. A browser can return to evercom.loc, but VK servers cannot deliver community events to that local address. Signing in again does not change this.

For local interface testing, the installation can explicitly enable VK_CALLBACK_MODE=deferred. Authorized communities then appear in the channel list with a notice that incoming messages are unavailable locally. They are saved as paused channels and cannot send or receive messages. The modal closes when the selected communities have been saved.

To enable messaging, the administrator must configure a public HTTPS callback address, restore the default VK_CALLBACK_MODE=required, restart the backend services, and use Retry connection on the saved community. A channel becomes active only after VK confirms the callback.