Creating and Applying Schedules

Schedules define active hours that you can use to control available times for agents and routing features.  Schedules are built using days of the week and hours of the day rather than specific calendar dates.

If you are using schedules to customize your routing, we recommend applying them only where needed and testing call routes when your setup is complete.  Using schedules at multiple stages in a call route can cause issues if there are unexpected conflicts or gaps in the available times.  See Troubleshooting Schedules for help understanding how schedules affect call routing.

Click here to watch the Schedules video tutorial. 

Creating a Schedule

1. Navigate to Flows → Schedules.  If you do not already have a schedule in your account, you'll be directed to a new schedule settings page.  Otherwise, click New Schedule in the upper right corner.
2. Enter a name and optional description for your schedule.
3. Select the applicable time zone.
   
4. Click Save Changes.
5. In the Times section, you can begin to set the available times for this schedule.  Click + Add Time.
   
6. Use the drop-down menus to select available hours.  Click on the days of the week to select available days (days that are highlighted are selected for the schedule).
   
   
   • Some shortcuts have been provided to help you build schedules quickly.  Click on these to pre-populate the available days and times in your schedule.
     • all day selects a full 24-hour period (12:00 am-12:00 am)
     • work day sets the hours to 8:50 am-6:00 pm
     • morning sets the hours to 8:50 am-12:00 pm
     • afternoon sets the hours to 1:00 pm-6:00 pm
     • all week selects all days in the week (including weekends)
     • weekdays selects Monday-Friday
     • weekends selects Saturday and Sunday
7. If needed, click +Add Time to add more times to the schedule.  All of the times listed on this schedule will be considered "active" schedule times.
   
8. Click Save Changes.

Applying a Schedule to an Agent

Schedules attached to agents in your account define times when that agent is available for calls from queues, smart dialers, or calls routed directly to the agent.  If the agent is in a queue that is currently active, but the agent's hours are not, then the agent will not be dialed by the queue (even if the agent is set to accepting calls in their softphone).

1. Navigate to Settings → Users and click edit next to the agent's name.
2. Click or scroll to the Agent Contact section of the page.
3. Use the Call Schedule drop-down to select the schedule you want to apply to the agent.
   • Note: only one schedule can be applied to an agent, so make sure the schedule you select has all the times that the agent needs to be available.
4. Click Save Changes.

The list of users in your account will show which schedules are assigned to each agent, allowing you to quickly check who has assigned hours.

Applying a Schedule in Routing

Schedules can be applied to multiple routing features, allowing you to define when certain parts of your call route are active.  For example, you could apply a working hours schedule to your call queue, and then set calls to go to your voicemail outside of those hours.

You can apply schedules to tracking numbers, receiving numbers, voice menus, queues, smart routers, and smart dialers.

1. Navigate to the part of your routing that you wish to apply a schedule to.
2. Look for a drop-down menu labeled Schedule.  Some settings pages will have a section labeled Scheduled Routing; otherwise, you should find this in the Routing section on the page.
3. Use the drop-down to select the name of the schedule you wish to use.
4. A new drop-down labeled "Route here when outside the above schedule" will appear.  Use this menu to choose where to route calls that occur outside of the schedule's hours.
5. Click Save Changes.

Exceptions

Exceptions can be added as temporary not available time. For example, if you know when an agent will be on vacation, you can add that date range as an exception. If an exception is added to a schedule that is applied to a routing object,  it will still enter that object but then follow the route here when outside the above schedule route.  

Adding an exception:

1. Navigate to Flows > Schedules and click on Edit next to the schedule you want to update.
2. Scroll to the Exceptions section and click the Add Exception button.
3. Fill out the relevant information in the pop-up window, including Name and Date Range, then click Add Exception.
4. This is what your Exception will look like once it has been added.