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Business hours and after-hours calls

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Ring your team during business hours and send callers to an after-hours message and voicemail at other times.

Calls to your number ring your team during business hours. Outside those hours, callers hear an after-hours message and can leave a voicemail.

Inbound number → Time conditions
                   ├─ Matches        → Ring group → No answer → Voicemail (daytime)
                   └─ Doesn't match  → Voicemail (after hours)

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”
  • A phone number in an Inbound number object. If you haven’t set one up yet, follow Set up your phone system first.
  • A User for each person who answers calls, each with at least one device.
  • Your opening hours, and your office’s time zone.
  • An after-hours greeting. You can record it in the browser or by phone while you set up, or upload an audio file. For a professional recording, use Services › Voiceover productions.

1. Add the Time conditions

Section titled “1. Add the Time conditions”
  1. On the PBX tab, drag Time conditions from the Conditions group onto the canvas and click the gear icon.
  2. Enter a Name, such as “Business hours”, and check that the Time zone is your office’s time zone.
  3. Click Add a time conditions group, then Add a time condition and choose Hours. Enter your opening hours in 24-hour time, for example 8:30 to 17:30.
  4. Click Add a time condition again, choose Days of the week and select Monday to Friday.
  5. Click Save.
  6. Connect the right side of your Inbound number to the left side of Time conditions.

If you open at different hours on some days, such as Saturday morning, add a second group for those times. All conditions in a group must match; a call matches if it matches any group. See the example on the Time conditions page.

2. Ring the team during business hours

Section titled “2. Ring the team during business hours”
  1. Drag Ring group from the Handling mass incoming calls group onto the canvas and click the gear icon.
  2. Enter a Name, such as “Office”, then click Add and choose the users who answer calls.
  3. Choose the Ring mode: Ring all rings everyone at once, Linear rings them one after another.
  4. Set each user’s Ring time, then click Save.
  5. Connect the Matches path of Time conditions to the Ring group.

3. Take a message when nobody answers

Section titled “3. Take a message when nobody answers”
  1. Drag Voicemail onto the canvas and click the gear icon.
  2. Enter a Name, such as “Daytime voicemail”, and choose a Greeting.
  3. Turn on Voicemail to email and enter the email address that should receive messages. You can also, or instead, turn on Local storage.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Connect the No answer path of the Ring group to this Voicemail.

4. Play the after-hours message

Section titled “4. Play the after-hours message”
  1. Drag a second Voicemail onto the canvas and click the gear icon.
  2. Enter a Name, such as “After hours”.
  3. Set Greeting to Custom and add your message with Record your voice or Upload file. Tell callers your opening hours and invite them to leave a message.
  4. Turn on Voicemail to email, Local storage, or both, and click Save.
  5. Connect the Doesn’t match path of Time conditions to this Voicemail.

5. Apply configuration

Section titled “5. Apply configuration”

Click Apply configuration in the top-right corner. Nothing changes for real calls until you do. If the button can’t be clicked, look for an object with a red outline: every object must be fully configured first.

Check it works

Section titled “Check it works”
  1. During business hours, call your number from a mobile. The team’s devices should ring. Let it ring out: you should reach the daytime voicemail.
  2. Outside business hours, call again. You should hear the after-hours greeting straight away.
  3. Leave a short message and check that it arrives by email.

To test the after-hours path without waiting, temporarily change the Hours so that now falls outside them, apply, call, then change them back and apply again.

If calls take the wrong path, check the Time zone in Time conditions first.

Variations

Section titled “Variations”
  • Closed message only, no voicemail: connect Doesn’t match to an Announcement instead. The call ends when the message finishes.
  • One mailbox for everything: connect both the No answer path and the Doesn’t match path to the same Voicemail, with a greeting that suits both.
  • Close early by hand: put a Call flow control before Time conditions so you can switch to the closed message with one dial code. See Public holidays and closures.
Section titled “Related”