A Telegram birthday bot where each member saves a date once and the group never forgets
Birthday lists die of maintenance. One person volunteers to keep a spreadsheet, it is accurate for four months, and then somebody joins the team and is never added to it.
BirthdayReminderProBot moves the data entry to the person who actually knows the answer. Each member saves their own date once with a single command, and from then on the group gets a greeting on the day without anyone administering anything.
Self-service, per group
A date is saved with /bday 14-03, day and month. A year is accepted but nothing in the bot displays an age from it, so including one is optional and has no visible consequence.
The greeting posts at 09:00 in the group's own timezone, set once by an admin with /gtz. The offset is per group rather than per person, because there is only one moment at which the group can be greeted.
Birthdays are scoped to the group they were saved in. Saving your date in a work chat does not put it in a family chat that happens to run the same bot, and /forgetme removes it from one group without touching the others.
/upcoming is the part people use most: the next dates in the group, soonest first, with days remaining. It is the answer to whether there is time to order something.
?start=zovo so arrivals from this page are counted separately.Setting it up in a group
- Add the bot. No admin rights are needed for the greeting itself.
- An admin sets the group offset. /gtz +2. Once set, only an admin can change it, so a greeting hour cannot be moved by accident.
- Everyone saves a date. /bday 14-03. Day-month. This is the only step each member has to take, ever.
- Check what is coming. /upcoming lists the next birthdays with how many days away each one is.
- Leave when you want. /forgetme removes your saved date from that group.
Command reference
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| /bday 14-03 | Save your birthday as day-month. A year is optional and never displayed. |
| /upcoming | The next birthdays in this group, soonest first, with days remaining. |
| /gtz +2 | Set the group's UTC offset for the 09:00 greeting. Admin-locked once set. |
| /greeting Happy birthday {name} | Pro: a custom greeting template for this group. |
| /forgetme | Remove your saved birthday from this group. |
Free and Pro
Free
- Up to 25 birthdays per group
- A greeting in the group on every saved date
- /upcoming
Pro
- A private heads-up sent to every other member the day before
- A custom greeting template via /greeting
One-time 150 Stars for the group. The day-before message is the part that changes behaviour, because it is the difference between saying happy birthday and having got something.
What it stores
- Day and month per member per group, plus a year only if the member chose to include one.
- A group row carrying the offset set with /gtz and the custom greeting template if Pro is active.
- The day-before private message reaches only members who have already started a private chat with the bot. The bot never messages somebody it cannot already reach.
Questions
- Do I have to give my birth year?
- No. Day and month are enough, and the year is never displayed or used to calculate an age even when supplied.
- When does the greeting post?
- 09:00 in the group's timezone. With no /gtz set, the group defaults to UTC.
- Is my date shared between groups?
- No. Each group holds its own copy, and /forgetme clears it from that group only.
- Who gets the day-before notice?
- On Pro, every other member of the group who has started a private chat with the bot. The person whose birthday it is is not told.
- What is the 25-birthday limit?
- A per-group cap on the free tier. It is generous for a team and tight for a large community, which is where Pro comes in.
Other Telegram bots in this set
All of them are listed alongside the rest of Zovo's free online tools, and the browser-side half of the catalogue is under Chrome extensions.
Want the step-by-step walkthrough? Read Birthday reminders in a group: the full guide on tg.zovo.one.