Sending a DM to a bot

[kuzimoto]

I have looked through the API and various documentation but can't seem to find a way to send a DM to a bot. When I try to do it through the web interface it just gives me an error "Sorry. You can't direct message SMS users." Is there any way around that?

[John Lotito]

You can not DM a bot.

On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 4:40 PM, kuzimoto <kuzi...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have looked through the API and various documentation but can't seem to find a way to send a DM to a bot. When I try to do it through the web interface it just gives me an error "Sorry. You can't direct message SMS users." Is there any way around that?

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[kuzimoto]

Any reason why not? Or it was just made that way?

[Jake Bathman]

It's just how it is, unfortunately. From what I can tell, a bot is a wholly separate type of entity than a user. The ID blocks are different, they don't show up in the membership list, they don't trigger system messages on coming and going, etc. DMs are just one more difference. 

Jake 

On Wednesday, February 17, 2016, kuzimoto <kuzi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Any reason why not? Or it was just made that way?

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[Dustin Smith]

I know this is and old thread, but it looks like you can set a `dm_notification` flag for a bot now. This makes a bot receive all the direct messages for a user. 

Then, you can send a DM back to that user with the direct message API with user access token, not the Bot API.  So its a bit of a workaround, but seems to work fine.

[Troy Wolf]

Wow. 7 years ago, and this is one of the top hits when I ask Google "GroupMe how to DM a bot". Indeed one can set "dm_notification": true, on a bot, but the only thing that accomplishes for me is to make it stop receiving the group messages. If "dm_notification" if false, any message posted in the group hits my callback URL. When "dm_notification" is true, those messages are not sent to my callback.

Now for the really messed up part, and it's very strange to me that I can't find anyone else talking about this, but... when I create a bot, it ends up associated with what appears to be some random, real user's profile. Once the bot is created, it stays stuck to that person's profile. If I create a new bot, it's some new "random" person. What I mean is, if you click the bot's avatar and then view the profile or try to DM the bot, the windows that opens has somebody's name it--somebody that is not your bot and somebody you don't know, is not part of any group you belong to, and you don't have privs to send them a DM.

GroupMe's bot system seems to be broken with nobody working on it anymore. I'd love to be wrong.

[kuzimoto]

Well, I stopped using the API approximately 7 years ago but I don't recall ever getting it to work, sorry! I'm surprised anyone is still using GroupMe though heh.