Set up your team’s opening hours

Build a working opening-hours rule. By the end you’ll have a Standard Support schedule covering email and chat, weekdays 9am-5pm in your team’s timezone.

Before you start

• Admin permissions on Opening Hours
• Teams configured (Settings → Teams) if you’ll scope by team
• Channels enabled (Settings → Channels)

Steps

1. Open Settings → Opening Hours.
2. Click New rule.
3. Fill in the basics:
   Name — descriptive (e.g. Standard Support Hours). This is what shows up in the rules list.
   Description — optional context for future-you (“default schedule for email and chat support”).
   Active — leave on so the rule applies as soon as it’s saved.
4. Scope the rule:
   Team Assignment — leave empty for a default rule that applies to any team, or pick specific teams.
   Channel Assignment — pick Email, Web Chat, SMS (or your relevant channels). Leave empty to cover all channels (rare — usually you scope by channel).
5. Set the weekly schedule:
   For each weekday (Monday-Friday): toggle the day on, set start time 09:00, end time 17:00.
   Saturday and Sunday: toggle off (closed).
   Time slots are in 30-minute intervals.
6. Confirm the timezone. Atender auto-detects from your browser, but verify it matches your team’s primary timezone. Use a timezone picker that’s unambiguous (America/New_York, not EST — EST doesn’t observe DST).
7. Save.

The rule is live immediately. Downstream features (SLA timers, automation schedule restrictions, IVR flows) start using it on the next conversation that matches its scope.

Verify it worked

1. During configured business hours, open a conversation that matches the rule’s scope. SLA timers should show countdown values that include now.
2. Outside business hours (or temporarily change the rule to a window that’s “now”), the SLA timers should pause — the badge stays at its last value rather than ticking down.
3. If you have an automation with a schedule restriction = inside business hours, run a test that should fire — it should fire only when the rule says you’re open.

Common patterns

• Standard 9-5 weekdays — Mon-Fri: 09:00-17:00, Sat/Sun off
• Extended weekday hours — Mon-Fri: 08:00-20:00
• Six-day support — Mon-Fri: 09:00-17:00, Sat: 10:00-14:00, Sun off
• Always-on async (email) — Every day 00:00-23:30 (effectively 24/7)
• Split-shift Mediterranean lunch — Mon-Fri: 09:00-13:00 + 14:00-18:00 (see split shifts)

Naming conventions for multiple rules

Once you have 3+ rules, naming consistency matters:

• <Team> <Channel> Hours — Premium Email Hours, Standard Chat Hours
• <Team> <Schedule> — Standard Weekday Support, On-Call 24/7
• <Region> <Hours> — EU Business Hours, APAC Business Hours

Be specific. A rule called Default is hard to debug six months later.

Don’t forget the timezone

The timezone applies to all time slots in the rule. If you have agents in two timezones (NYC and London), you need two rules, not one — see multi-timezone hours. Trying to encode “9am everywhere” in a single rule with one timezone produces wrong behavior for one of the offices.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: Rule doesn’t seem to apply — SLA timers count overnight. Fix: Check the rule’s active toggle. Check that the team and channel scoping match the conversation. See rule resolution reference.
• Symptom: Timezone is wrong (timer pauses at the wrong time of day). Fix: Re-check the timezone field. Use a fully-qualified zone like America/Los_Angeles rather than PST.
• Symptom: Holidays aren’t being recognized. Fix: That’s a separate setting. See Configure holidays and date overrides.

See also

• Configure holidays and date overrides
• Set up split shifts and multi-timezone hours
• Rule resolution reference