Business hours and holidays

Business hours tell IconEngage when you are open. Each WhatsApp number follows a set of hours, and flows ask those hours one question: are we open, closed or on a holiday? That is how an out-of-hours auto-reply knows when to send.

Go to Settings → Business hours. You need permission to manage routing to change anything; anyone who can see Teams & Routing can look.

Schedules

A schedule is a named set of hours: a timezone, a week of opening times and a holiday calendar. Most organisations need one ("Head office"); add more when numbers keep different hours, for example a support line that is open on Saturdays.

The list shows each schedule's name, timezone, how many days a week it is open, how many holidays it has, what uses it, and a live status such as Open now · closes 18:00, Closed · opens tomorrow 09:00 or Holiday · Diwali · opens Mon 09:00. The status is worked out in the schedule's own timezone and refreshes every minute.

Create a schedule

1. Click New schedule.
2. Enter a Name, such as "Head office".
3. Choose the Timezone. Opening times and holidays are read in this zone, wherever your team is sitting. Use my timezone fills in yours.
4. Choose what to Start with: Monday to Friday 09:00–18:00, Monday to Saturday, every day, or open around the clock.
5. Leave Make this the organisation default on if every number should follow it. (It is on for your first schedule.)
6. Click Create. The schedule opens so you can adjust the days.

The organisation default

One schedule can be the Organisation default. Every WhatsApp number that has not chosen hours of its own follows it. Turn Organisation default on in a schedule's page to move the default there.

If there is no default, numbers without their own hours are treated as always open, and an out-of-hours reply never fires. The list warns you when that is the case.

Opening times

Each day can have up to three time ranges, for example 09:00–13:00 and 14:00–18:00 with a lunch break. Click Add hours on Monday (and so on) to add a range, and the bin to remove one. Copy Monday to Tuesday–Friday copies Monday's ranges to the rest of the working week.

• Night shifts: a closing time earlier than the opening time runs past midnight. 22:00–06:00 on Friday means open from Friday 22:00 to Saturday 06:00.
• A day with no ranges is closed.
• A week with no ranges at all is open around the clock (except on holidays).
• A schedule that came from a department (made from a department's own opening times when business hours arrived) says so under its timezone: "This schedule came from a department: with no weekly hours it stays open on holidays." It keeps the department's old rule — with no weekly hours at all, it is open on its holidays too.
• Two ranges on the same day can't overlap.

The week preview above the form shows the draft as you type, in the schedule's zone and in yours, with the week's total hours. Click Save opening times to keep the changes, or Discard changes.

Holidays

The holiday calendar lists every holiday at its next date, month by month. Each shows whether it is Closed all day or Open for special hours, and Every year if it repeats. One-off holidays that have passed are listed under Past.

Add a holiday

1. Under Add a holiday, enter the Name (for example "Diwali") and the Date. The Common buttons fill in fixed-date holidays such as Republic Day and Christmas Day.
2. Turn on Repeats every year for a holiday on the same date every year. A holiday on 29 February falls on 28 February in other years. Leave it off for holidays whose date changes, like Diwali or Eid, and add each year's date.
3. Choose That day: Closed all day, or Open for special hours with an Opens and Closes time (for example 10:00–14:00 on Christmas Eve).
4. Click Add holiday.

A date can only have one holiday. A one-off holiday wins over a yearly one on the same day. To change a holiday, remove it with the bin and add it again.

A night shift that started the evening before still runs into a holiday morning: if Friday 22:00–06:00 is open and Saturday is a holiday, you are open until 06:00 on Saturday.

Choose the hours a number keeps

Go to WhatsApp → Numbers and accounts. The numbers table has a Business hours column with a picker for each number:

• Organisation default (Head office): the number follows whichever schedule is the default, now and if the default changes.
• A schedule by name: the number keeps that schedule's hours.

The same picker is on each number's own page, under Business hours, with the number's live status. Changing it changes nothing at Meta.

Use business hours in a flow

The quickest way to answer out of hours is the Numbers page under Automation: on a number, click Set up an out-of-hours auto-reply (see Flows and WhatsApp numbers). A trigger's When setting can also limit it to open or closed hours.

For more control, add the Business hours step (in Decide) to a flow. It leaves by open, closed or holiday. See Flows and WhatsApp numbers for its settings and the {{next_open_at}} and {{holiday_name}} variables, and start from the Away hours template for a ready-made out-of-hours reply.

Departments

A department under Teams & Routing keeps its own opening times and holidays, which pause its SLA clock. The Business hours step can read a department's hours too: choose A department's hours as its source.

Delete a schedule

At the bottom of a schedule's page, click Delete followed by its name, then confirm. A schedule that a number, a department or a live flow still uses can't be deleted; the message says what uses it, so you can move those to other hours first. Deleting the default leaves the organisation with no default.