Creating Business Hours

With business hours, you can define the regular hours of your business, extended hours, and blackout exceptions. You can then configure your flow to check whether your business is open or closed. To create business hours, you must have the default Administrator role or a custom role with the MANAGE_ALL_BUSINESS_HOURS permission.

Creating business hours consists of the following steps:

  1. Creating Business Hours
  2. Setting Regular Hours and Blackout Exceptions
    1. Configuring the Draft Details
    2. Configuring Hours and Exceptions
    3. Saving and Publishing Drafts
  3. Setting an Active Version

Creating Business Hours

To create business hours:

  1. Go to Configuration > Business Hours.
  2. Click Create.
  3. Enter the business hours details:
    • Name: Enter a name for the business hours. The name cannot be the same as other business hours on the current tenant.
    • Description: Optionally, enter a description for the business hours.
    • Shared: By default, this is disabled. Optionally, click to share the business hours with child tenants. Child tenants can view all inherited business hours but cannot edit them.
  4. Click to Submit.

    The business hours details are saved, and draft version opens to begin configuring regular hours and blackout exceptions.

Setting Regular Hours and Blackout Exceptions

After creating business hours, the business hours draft window opens where you can configure your regular hours, one-time extended hours, and blackout exceptions (recurring and one-time).

 

Changes that you make to the business hours draft are not auto-saved. Click Save Draft in the top right corner as you configure the hours to save your work. Clicking Save Draft saves your changes but does not publish the draft. If you navigate away from the page without clicking Cancel, Save Draft, or Publish, a confirmation message shows to discard or save your changes.

The Save Draft button is disabled when there are either no unsaved changes or if the changes can't be saved because there is an error (for example, duplicate draft name or a Start Time is after the End Time). Errors are outlined in red. After the errors are corrected, the Save Draft button is enabled and can be clicked.

Configuring the Draft Details

  1. Enter a Draft Name.

    The name cannot be the same as another draft name in the current business hours. By default, the draft is called "Initial Draft".

  2. Optionally, enter a Description.
  3. Select a Time Zone.

    The business hours and blackout exceptions that you set use this timezone.

Configuring Hours and Exceptions

  As you configure hours and exceptions (rules), the changes are represented visually on the calendar.
  1. Under Hours and Exceptions, enter a Name for the hours or exceptions.

    The name must be unique for the draft or version. If the name is not unique, the name field for the duplicate rules is red.

  2. Select a type of rule:
    • Regular Hours: The hours when your business is open.
    • One-Time Extended Hours: A one-time occurrence of additional open hours outside of your regular hours.
    • Blackout Exceptions: Recurring times when your business is closed during regular hours.
    • Blackout One-Time Exceptions: A one-time occurrence when your business is closed during regular hours.
  3. Optionally, enter a Description.
  4. Select how often you want these hours to repeat from the Repeats, Every, and Days (if applicable) menus.

    Repeats is an option for Regular Hours and Blackout Exceptions only.

    5. Repeats Every On
    Daily

    n days

    Enter the frequency in days you want the hours or exceptions to repeat. For example, enter 3 to repeat every 3 days.

    		N/A
    Weekly

    n weeks

    Enter the frequency in weeks you want the hours or exceptions to repeat. For example, enter 2 to repeat every 2 weeks.

    Select one or more days of the week when you want the hours or exceptions to repeat:

    S (Sunday), M (Monday), T (Tuesday), W (Wednesday), T (Thursday), F (Friday), S (Saturday)
    Monthly

    n months

    Enter the frequency in months that you want the hours or exceptions to repeat. For example, enter 6 to repeat every 6 months.

    Select the day of the month when the rule repeats: 

    • Day: Enter a day between 1 and 31
    • First, Second, Third, Fourth, or Last occurrence of the given day in the month:
    • Day
    • Weekday
    • Weekend Day
    • Sunday
    • Monday
    • Tuesday
    • Wednesday
    • Thursday
    • Friday
    • Saturday
    Yearly

    Select the month that you want the hours or exceptions repeated each year:

    January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

    Select one of the following:

    • Day: Enter a day of the month between 1 and 31.
    • First, Second, Third, Fourth, or Last occurrence of the given day in the month:
    • Day
    • Weekday
    • Weekend Day
    • Sunday
    • Monday
    • Tuesday
    • Wednesday
    • Thursday
    • Friday
    • Saturday
  5. Use the calendar pickers to select a Start and (optionally) an End that the hours or exceptions are in effect.

    End has two options: None (there is no end date) and By (select date from the calendar picker)

  6. Under Hours, select the times during the day that you want the hours or exceptions applied:
    • All Day: The full day (12:00AM to midnight)
    • Partial Day: Select a Start Time and End Time. If you want to add more time ranges for the day, click +.

      If you want the end time to go to midnight, set the value to 12:00 AM.

       Time ranges cannot overlap within the same rule.
  7. Click Add Rule.

    If there is anything incorrect in the rule (for example, duplicate rule name or missing Every value), this button is disabled. After the rule is corrected you can click Add Rule.

To add more rules, click + next to Hours and Exceptions.

To copy a rule within the same draft, click the actions menu () on the rule and click Copy. To remove a draft, click Delete in the actions menu.

Saving and Publishing Drafts

At any point while you are configuring a draft, you can save the draft and return to it later.

  If there is an error in the draft (for example, duplicate draft name or a Start Time is after the End Time), the Save Draft, Save and Publish, and Publish buttons are disabled. The errors in the draft are outlined and red. After they are corrected, the buttons are enabled and can be clicked.

When the draft is done, you can publish it:

  1. Click Save and Publish.

    If you have unsaved changes, the button shows Save and Publish. If all your changes are already saved, it displays Publish.

  2. In the window that opens, enter a version name for this set of hours and exceptions.

    The name cannot be the same as another version name in the current business hours.

  3. Optionally, click the Make active toggle to make it the active version for the business hours.

After you have published at least one version and set an active version, you can enable the business hours.

  To create a new draft for these business hours in the future, click + in the Versions section.

Setting an Active Version

If you didn't make a version the active version while publishing it, you must set an active version before you enable the business hours.

To set an active version:

  1. Go to Configuration > Business Hours.
  2. From the list, click the business hours you want to enable.
  3. Select a version from the Active Version drop-down menu.

You might also be interested in: