The dirty secret of construction software is that nobody on-site installs the app. Site supervisors download it once, forget the password, and go back to shouting attendance updates on the site WhatsApp group. The last-mile of any construction workflow lives on the messenger app the crew already uses.
Karya was built around that reality. The primary interface is the Telegram bot @karya_ops_bot (with WhatsApp on the roadmap via Twilio). Everything a supervisor needs to do — mark attendance, forward a receipt, log an advance, record a task-completion, send a daily site report — happens in a chat.
What the Telegram bot actually does
- Natural-language commands. “Ramesh took an advance of 5000” posts an advance to Ramesh's ledger. “10 workers came to Site A today” logs attendance.
- Forward-and-file media. Send a receipt photo, tap “Receipt”, and AI parses vendor + amount + category into your expense ledger. Send a photo of a completed slab, tap “Daily report”, and it gets attached to today's log.
- Voice-first for supervisors who don't type. Record a Hindi/Tamil/Malayalam voice note; Whisper transcribes it; the AI executes the command; the bot replies with a Hindi/Tamil TTS confirmation.
- Proactive morning briefings. Opt-in daily digest at your chosen time — active workers, upcoming compliance deadlines, pending settlements.
- Compliance alerts. Automatic 3-day / 1-day / on-the-day reminders for every deadline you record.
- Multi-language replies. The bot detects your saved app language and responds in it (long messages only — short acks stay in English so numbers and names don't get transliterated).
Why not just a mobile app?
We tried. Two rounds of user testing killed the idea. Site staff won't install one more app; the Play Store rating tanks the moment mobile data gets patchy on-site; and updating a native app every time we ship a feature is a losing race. Telegram gives us near-native UX, push notifications, media handling, and multi-device sync — for zero install friction.
Try Karya free → Link your Telegram from the Profile page, forward a receipt, and watch the AI file it for you in under 10 seconds.