message.comDevelopers
Developers/Tutorials/Configure business hours

Configure business hours

Tell message.com when humans are available. Inside hours, conversations route to agents. Outside hours, they go to voicemail, AI Receptionist, or a queued state that fires off-hours greetings. Configure once per channel, override on holidays.

1. Open the schedule editor

  1. Open app.message.com.
  2. Go to Settings → Availability → Business hours.

2. Pick a workspace timezone

Every workspace has a primary timezone. Schedules are stored in that timezone and rendered to visitors in their local time when relevant. Set this once. Changing it later remaps the existing hours (8am Monday in NYC becomes 8am Monday in LA, not 11am LA).

If your team spans timezones, set the workspace timezone to your dispatch location. Individual agents can still set personal away hours.

3. Set weekly hours per channel

Three independent schedules:

  • Chat hours. When the launcher shows live status vs an offline form.
  • Ticket hours. Usually 24x7 because email is inherently async. Set ticket hours only if you want auto-replies that mention next-business-day SLA.
  • Phone hours. When inbound calls ring agents vs go straight to voicemail or AI Receptionist.

For each channel, click each day and set open and close times. Multiple ranges per day are supported (e.g., 9am-1pm, 2pm-6pm if you observe a lunch closure).

4. Add holiday overrides

  1. Open the Holidays tab.
  2. Click Add holiday.
  3. Pick a date (or date range) and a behaviour: Closed, Custom hours, or Open as normal.
  4. Save.

5. Configure off-hours behaviour

Per channel, choose what happens outside business hours:

  • Chat.
    • Show offline form. Visitor leaves an email; we create a ticket.
    • Hide launcher. No chat surface visible.
    • Stay open. Conversations sit in queue until morning.
  • Tickets. Auto-replies that include your next-business-day promise.
  • Phone. Voicemail (with transcription), AI Receptionist, or forward to another number.

Verify

  1. Temporarily set your hours to a window five minutes from now.
  2. Wait for the boundary. Confirm the launcher behaviour flips correctly.
  3. Restore normal hours.

Common pitfalls

  • DST. Switching between standard time and daylight time happens automatically. The hours are stored as wall-clock times in your timezone.
  • Per-agent away. Individual agents have their own status (available / away / offline). Business hours determine workspace defaults; agent status overrides per-agent.
  • Channel mismatch. Chat closed, phone open is normal for many teams. Configure each channel independently.
  • Holidays mid-week. A holiday entry overrides the weekly schedule for that date only. Returns to normal automatically the next day.

Next steps