Business Hours

This topic provides an overview of the Business Hours component, and describes its configuration as well as supported connections.

Component introduction

Business Hours component allows you to route the message session to different destinations based on the time of day. A variety of time-based modes listed in the table below are available to flexibly define office hours and implement time-based message routing.

Type Description
Business Hours Configured for Time Zone

Use pre-configured business hours for a specific time zone.

Note: This requires you to configure business hours in advance. To configure this, go to Call Control > Business Hours and Holidays.
Custom Business Hours

Create custom business hours based on a specific time zone to specify uniform or varied schedule through the week, or full time (24x7) schedule.
Custom Time Periods

Create custom time periods based on a specific time zone to accommodate granular scheduling needs.

Component configuration

  1. 将Business Hours component to a message flow, click Business Hours component to proceed with the configuration.

  2. In the pop-up wight panel, select a time-based mode according to your business schedule, then configure its related settings.
    Scenario Instruction
    Use Business Hours Configured for Time Zone

    1. In the Time-based Mode drop-down list, select Based on Business Hours Configured for the Time Zone.
    2. In the Time Zone drop-down list, select a time zone.
    3. Optional: To prevent the session from being distributed to the holiday destination, select the checkbox of Ignore the Holiday Destination.
      Note: If enabled, incoming sessions during holidays will be routed to the destination defined for Business Hours or Outside Business Hours.
    4. At the bottom-right corner, click Confirm.

      The selected time zone appears on the component and multiple associated time branches are automatically created.
    Use Custom Business Hours

    1. In the Time-based Mode drop-down list, select Based on Custom Business Hours.
    2. In the Time Zone drop-down list, select a time zone.
    3. In the Daylight Saving Time drop-down list, select an option to enable or disable the feature.
    4. Select a business hour type, then configure its related settings to customize business hours.
      Note: Up to 20 time periods are supported for business hours and break hours respectively.
    5. Optional: Turn on the switch of Holidays, then add holidays.
      Note: Up to 50 holidays are supported.
    6. At the bottom-right corner, click Confirm.

      The custom business hours appear on the component and multiple associated time branches are automatically created.
    Use Custom Time Periods

    1. In the Time-based Mode drop-down list, select Based on Custom Time Periods.
    2. In the Time Zone drop-down list, select a time zone.
    3. In the Daylight Saving Time drop-down list, select an option to enable or disable the feature.
    4. Optional: Turn on the switch of Holidays, then add holidays.
      Note: Up to 50 holidays are supported.
    5. At the bottom-right corner, click Confirm.
    6. Hover over component and click to add and configure custom time periods.
      Note: Up to 50 custom time periods are supported.

      The time zone and multiple time branches will appear on the component.

      Note: Default branch indicates the failover destination for the message session that don't match any configured time conditions.

  3. Optional: To route the message session or trigger other actions when the component's branch conditions are met, hover over the desired branch and click to add the next component.

    For more information about components that support to be connected, see Component connections.

Component connections

Business Hours component comes with built-in time branches, such as Business Hours, Outside Business Hours, and Holidays. Each branch can be connected to one component, which can be any of the components listed below.

Note: If a component is already connected to the branch, and you need to insert a new component between them, hover over the line, click and select the target component. The selected component is inserted between them with connections auto-established on both ends, without the need to delete the connection, add the component and reconnect manually.

End components Transfer and Close are unavailable for this insertion method.

Component Description
Send Message Send Message component enables the system to automatically send messages to customers.

For more information, see Send Message.
Send WhatsApp Template Message Send WhatsApp Template Message component enables the system to automatically send messages to customers using specified WhatsApp message templates.
Important: This component is available only when the message flow is only applicable to WhatsApp channel type.

For more information, see Send WhatsApp Template Message.
Wait for Reply Wait for Reply component allows you to set the reply timeout and route the message session depending on whether a reply is received.

For more information, see Wait for Reply.
Menu Menu component allows you to present the customer with a set of menu options, and route the message session based on the value that they reply.

For more information, see Menu.
Business Hours

Business Hours component allows you to route the message session to different destinations based on the time of day.

For more information, see Business Hours.
Wait Wait component enables the system to automatically route the message session to the connected component upon reply timeout.

For more information, see Wait.
Condition Condition component allows routing the message session based on logical expressions.

For more information, see Condition.
Loop Loop component allows a group of components to be executed repeatedly based on the loop strategy.

For more information, see Loop.
Internal Data Ops Internal Data Ops component allows you to query data from PBX-native database.
For more information, see the following topics:
Email Sender Email Sender component enables the system to automatically send emails to a recipient via configured email server and record the send logs, enabling real-time notifications.

For more information, see Email Sender.
Database Access Database Access component allows you to interact with database during a message flow. You can execute SQL operations to retrieve or update data as needed.

For more information, see Database Access.
HTTP Request HTTP Request component allows you to send HTTP requests to external web servers, enabling data exchange with third-party services.

For more information, see HTTP Request.
Transfer

Transfer component allows you to transfer the message session to a specific destination to terminate the current message flow.

For more information, see Transfer.
Close Close component enables the system to automatically disconnect the message session to terminate the current message flow.

For more information, see Close.