Setup Guide

This guide walks you through setting up Disturv end to end. Most merchants are up and running in under 15 minutes.

Before you begin

You’ll need:

• A Shopify store where you can install apps.
• A Telegram account.
• The Telegram channel(s) or group(s) you want to sell access to — you must be an admin of them.

Step 1Create a Telegram bot

1. In Telegram, open a chat with @BotFather (the official bot for creating bots).
2. Send /newbot and follow the prompts to name your bot and choose a username.
3. BotFather replies with a bot token. Keep it private — you’ll paste it into Disturv in Step 2.

/newbot
Alright, a new bot. How are we going to call it?
Signals VIP Bot
Good. Now let’s choose a username… it must end in 'bot'.
signals_vip_bot
Done! Use this token to access the HTTP API:
123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11

Step 2Install Disturv and connect your bot

1. Install Disturv from the Shopify App Store and open it from your Shopify admin.
2. Go to Settings and paste your bot token. Disturv verifies the bot and stores the token encrypted.

Step 3Add your bot to your channel as an admin

1. Open your Telegram channel → Administrators → Add Admin.
2. Add the bot you connected in Step 2.
3. Grant it permission to add members / manage invite links. Disturv needs this to create one-time invite links and approve join requests.
4. Repeat for every channel or group you plan to link.

Step 4Link a product to a channel

1. Open a Shopify product inside Disturv and choose the channel(s) it should grant access to.
2. Set how long access should last:
   • Subscription products: leave “Use subscription billing duration” checked (the default). Access matches the customer’s billing interval — weekly, monthly, yearly — and renews automatically with each charge. Uncheck it only if you want a fixed number of days instead.
   • One-time products: enter the number of days access should last after purchase. Leave it blank for lifetime access.
   • If a product unlocks two or more channels, you can give any channel its own duration with an “Override (days)” value. Leave it blank to use the product’s duration. (With a single channel there’s nothing to override, so the field is hidden.)
3. Save. The product is now live for automated access.

Step 5Show invite links on your checkout pages

Disturv delivers each customer’s invite link through an app block you add to your Thank you and Order status pages. This is a one-time setup and takes a minute.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings → Checkout and click Customize.
2. Using the page selector at the top of the editor, open the Thank you page.
3. Click Add app block and choose the Disturv invite-links block. Position it where you’d like the links to appear.
4. Switch to the Order status page and add the same Disturv block there.
5. (Optional) Select the block to customize its Title, Thank-you heading, and message text.
6. Click Save.

Step 6Test a purchase

1. Place a test order for the linked product.
2. On the Thank you and Order status pages, confirm the one-time invite link appears.
3. Click the link in Telegram and confirm the join request is approved automatically and you land in the channel.

How the access length is decided

For each channel a product unlocks, Disturv picks the access length using the first rule that applies:

1. A per-channel “Override (days)”, if you set one for that channel.
2. For subscriptions: the customer’s actual billing interval (for example, 1 month for a monthly plan). Access renews automatically each cycle.
3. The product’s “Access Duration (days)”.
4. If none of the above is set: lifetime access (no expiry).

What this means in practice:

• Subscriptions follow the billing interval by default. The “Access Duration (days)” field acts only as a fallback — it’s used if Disturv can’t read the interval from the order, so it’s good practice to set it to roughly match the interval.
• A per-channel override always wins. On a subscription, a fixed-days override makes that one channel expire after those days and stop following the subscription — the other channels keep following it. Use it only when you deliberately want a channel on a different schedule (for example, a one-off onboarding channel alongside an ongoing signals channel).
• Keep any fixed duration at or above the billing interval. A shorter duration can briefly drop a member between charges and prompt an unnecessary rejoin.

How access is managed over time

Managing members

• The dashboard shows your current active member count and recent channel activity.
• You can generate a manual invite to grant access outside of a normal purchase.
• Member counts reflect current channel membership and can include people who joined outside of Disturv.

Troubleshooting

The invite link isn’t showing on the order page

Make sure you’ve added the Disturv app block to your Thank you and Order status pages (Step 5). Also confirm the product is linked to a channel, the order is paid, and your bot is still an admin of the channel.

The join request wasn’t approved

Check that your bot is an administrator of the channel with permission to add members / manage invite links. If you removed and re-added the bot, re-link the channel.

A member wasn’t removed when their access ended

Removal runs on a schedule shortly after access ends. Confirm the membership shows as expired in the dashboard; if the bot lost admin rights it cannot remove members.

A member was asked to rejoin even though their subscription is still active

This usually means the channel’s access duration is set shorter than the subscription’s billing interval, so access lapses between charges. Set the product’s “Access Duration (days)” to match or exceed the billing interval, or re-check “Use subscription billing duration” so access simply follows the subscription.