Business hours
Your weekly schedule, holidays and what happens outside opening hours. Every day row, every button and all three after-hours switches explained.
Last updated: September 30, 2026
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Your weekly schedule, holidays and what happens outside opening hours. Every day row, every button and all three after-hours switches explained.
Last updated: September 30, 2026
Answering a midnight question in the morning is not a problem; the customer not knowing what is happening while they wait is. Business hours teaches the panel when you are open and tells it what to do when you are not: it can send an automatic reply, defer automations until you open, and assign nothing to anyone. This guide walks through every row and every switch on the screen.
⚠️ Times are read in the account's time zone. The page header states which one you are in (for example "Times follow the Europe/Istanbul time zone."). If it is wrong, fix the time zone first on Account settings: General — otherwise every hour here shifts.
Business hours belong to the account: you set them per account. Once set, the panel can answer "am I open right now?" at any moment, and it uses that answer in three places — the automatic reply, deferring automations, and conversation assignment.
The screen holds one collapsible section called Weekly schedule, containing in order the master switch, seven day rows, holidays and after-hours behaviour.
The checkbox at the top of the section is the master switch.
So if you don't want an opening-hours rule, leaving this box off is enough; "always open" is not a separate option.
Turn the box on and seven rows appear, Monday through Sunday. The day's name sits on the left of each row, its time ranges on the right.
To add a range to a day:
The rules:
Multiple ranges exist for businesses that take a break. If a restaurant closes between 14:00 and 17:00, that day gets two ranges: 11:00–14:00 and 17:00–23:00. The three hours in between count as after hours.
💡 For shifts that cross midnight, use two days. If you open Friday at 22:00 and close Saturday at 03:00, write 22:00–23:59 on Friday and 00:00–03:00 on Saturday.
The list below the day rows. Its hint reads: "You are closed on these dates (New Year's Day, public holidays…)."
To add a holiday:
To remove one, tap the cross on its badge. You cannot add the same date twice; a duplicate pick is ignored. The list holds at most 60 dates.
A holiday overrides that day's weekly schedule completely: mark 1 January as a holiday and you count as closed whatever weekday it falls on.
⚠️ The holiday list does not renew itself. You add each year's dates separately, and it's worth deleting last year's so the list doesn't pile up.
Below the holiday list there are three independent switches. Each turns on and off on its own; one does not affect another.
Turn it on and a text area called After-hours message appears underneath. That is the text your customer receives.
The sending rule matters: the message goes out once per closed period. Even if the customer writes five messages overnight, they receive the automatic reply once. That prevents sending the same text over and over to someone writing repeatedly.
A good after-hours message says three things: that you are closed, when you open, and what the customer should do. For example: "We're closed at the moment. We're here weekdays 09:00–18:00 and will get back to you first thing once we see your message."
Turn it on and flows that start outside hours are held and continue where they left off once you open.
There is one important exception: if the 24-hour messaging window is about to close, the flow is not deferred. The panel will not risk the message never going out because of a delay; it runs the flow before the window shuts. For the whole window rule see the 24-hour messaging window article.
This switch exists for businesses that don't want notifications reaching customers in the middle of the night. Leave it off and flows run regardless of the clock.
Turn it on and conversations arriving after hours stay unassigned, then get distributed in order according to the assignment rules once you open.
The reason is simple: handing ten overnight conversations to sleeping agents means an uneven load when they arrive. Leaving assignment to the morning spreads it across whoever is actually available then.
The assignment rules themselves are a portfolio setting; see Conversation assignment rules.
After your changes, press Save at the bottom of the card.
Owner, Admin, Editor and Viewer can open the screen; Agents don't see it in the menu. Only Owner and Admin can change it; the other roles can read the schedule but see no Save button.
The panel has two kinds of working hours and they do different jobs:
So the shop may be open 09:00–22:00 while you work 09:00–17:00; evening conversations go to a colleague who is available then, not to you.
Trying to mark a closed day as "closed". There is no such box; adding no range to that day is enough.
Writing a shift that crosses midnight in one row. 22:00–03:00 isn't valid; split it across two days.
Turning on the after-hours reply and leaving the text empty. With no text there is nothing to send.
Building a schedule without checking the time zone. If the zone in the page header is wrong, so is the schedule.
Expecting the automatic reply to go out for every message. It goes out once per closed period.
Forgetting to refresh holidays each year. Last year's 1 January does nothing for this year.
For the time zone setting see Account settings: General, for assignment see Conversation assignment rules, and for your own availability see Profile.
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