Business hours: when your team takes handoffs

Business hours tell Ciarem when your advisors are available to take conversations from the AI agents. You set them once, for the whole organization, in Settings > General. Any transfer rule can then follow them: inside your hours it hands the conversation to a person, and outside them the AI agents keep attending the customer. Admins set them up.

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Set your weekly hours

Hours follow your organization’s timezone, set in the Timezone card on the same page; the dialog and the card both name it. The time ranges of one day can’t overlap, and each one must end after it starts.

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Special hours: holidays and vacations

Once your weekly hours are saved, the card also shows Special hours: dates when your team won’t be available, or works different hours than usual. Click Add special hours and fill in:

• Name: for example “Christmas”.
• Date: one day, or a date range (pick a second day to extend it). For a range, Which days does this apply to? lets you limit it to some weekdays, for example only the Saturdays of December.
• Business hours: Closed all day (your AI agents won’t transfer conversations to advisors on those dates) or Different hours, with their own time ranges.
• Repeat every year: applies the same dates automatically every year.

A summary at the bottom of the dialog says what will happen in plain words before you save. Each special date then appears in the list with its dates and hours, and its ⋯ menu lets you edit or delete it. Deleting one sends those dates back to your regular hours. When two special dates cover the same day, the shorter one wins, so a holiday inside a vacation range follows the holiday.

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How transfer rules use them

In a transfer rule’s Hours step, pick Only during business hours. From then on, that rule:

• transfers only inside your weekly hours, with your special hours applied;
• outside them, does not transfer: the AI agents keep attending the conversation. If the rule has custom messages, the agent sends your Message outside transfer hours on a working day, or your Message for non-working days on a closed day or a closed special date, and keeps helping.

A rule set to Every day, at any time ignores business hours. Until you set them up, Only during business hours can’t be picked; the step offers Set up hours instead, which opens this page in a new tab. If you never set business hours, your AI agents assume advisors are always available. Rules created before business hours existed keep their own day-by-day schedule until you switch them to one of the two options. See Create a rule step by step.

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Test it

In AI training, set Current time to a moment outside your hours (a Sunday, or a special date you are closed) and send a message that should transfer. The agent keeps the conversation and, if the rule has one, sends your off-hours message. Set a time inside your hours and the same message transfers. See The playground.

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Good to know

• Business hours only decide when transfer rules may hand a conversation to a person. They don’t switch the AI on or off, and they don’t decide when the agent may book appointments: that is each calendar’s own schedule. See Booking meetings.
• They don’t set anyone’s availability in the Inbox either. Keep someone Active during your hours. See After the handoff.