What a channel is
Every connected messaging service in Octopods is a channel. A channel represents one way your business is reachable — for example:
A single WhatsApp Business number.
A single Telegram bot.
A single SMS sender number or short code.
A single Facebook Page or Instagram Business Account.
A single Slack workspace paired with a specific channel.
Each channel lives inside a workspace, and each workspace links to exactly one Intercom workspace or one HubSpot portal. When a customer sends a message on a channel, Octopods forwards it into the connected Intercom or HubSpot inbox. When your teammate replies from that inbox, Octopods delivers the reply back to the customer on the same channel.
Channels belong to a workspace
Channels are never global — they always belong to the workspace where they were created. That means:
You can connect the same channel type multiple times across workspaces (for example, one Telegram bot in each workspace).
A single channel cannot serve two workspaces at once. Each Telegram bot, WhatsApp number, or Facebook Page can belong to only one Octopods channel.
When you archive a workspace, its channels go with it.
The channel list
Inside a workspace, the channels page shows every channel you’ve connected. For each channel you’ll see:
Name — either the channel’s technical identifier (phone number, bot username, Page name) or a friendly name you set.
Provider — the messaging service behind the channel (WhatsApp Cloud API, Twilio, Telegram, Facebook, and so on).
Status — whether the channel is currently connected, pending verification, offline, or disconnected. See Channel Statuses and Troubleshooting for the full list.
Created / updated date — when the channel was first added and last changed.
Available channels depend on your workspace type
Not every channel is available on every workspace. The list of channels you can add depends on whether the workspace is connected to Intercom or HubSpot:
Intercom workspaces support the full Octopods channel catalog, including WhatsApp Cloud API, Twilio SMS, Telegram, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Slack, LINE, Viber, Viber Business Messages (VBM), and WeChat.
HubSpot workspaces support a curated set: WhatsApp Cloud API, Twilio SMS, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Slack. Some of these channels require additional HubSpot permissions and an inbox selection during setup.
When you open the Add a Channel modal, only the channels supported by your workspace type appear.
What you can do with a channel
Once connected, each channel can:
Receive inbound messages from customers and route them into your customer platform’s inbox.
Send replies from that inbox back to the customer on the original channel.
Send proactive outbound messages (for example, WhatsApp templates or SMS) from a contact or conversation record, or via the Octopods API.
Participate in broadcasts — targeted one-to-many campaigns.
Channel-specific features, such as WhatsApp templates or Slack’s two connection modes, are covered in the setup article for each channel.
What’s next
See the Intercom Channels section for channel-specific setup guides
See the HubSpot Channels section for HubSpot-specific setup details