Set business hours for an inbox

Each inbox can have its own business hours: a weekly schedule with a time zone, used by your automations and your reports. Customers can still write to you at any time; business hours never block messages.

Set the hours

1. Open the STS Connect Inbox and go to Settings → Inboxes, then open the inbox.
2. Open the Business hours tab and turn it on.
3. For each day, set the open hours, mark the day closed, or mark it open all day. A day can have more than one open period, for example 09:00-13:00 and 16:00-21:00.
4. Choose the time zone the hours are understood in, and save.

The schedule repeats every week. There is no separate holiday calendar, so for holidays change the affected days, then change them back.

The away message

On the website chat, visitors who open the widget outside your hours see an away message you write there, for example your opening times and how to reach you. See Add live chat to your website.

What business hours change

• Automations: a flow can branch on working hours, for example to reply differently or to assign the night shift to the on-call team. See Automate your inbox with flows.
• Reports: in Analytics > Team performance, the business hours option counts only the time inside your working hours; where no hours are configured it reads as zero. See Measure team performance.

What they do not change

• Messages are never blocked: customers can write at any hour, and the conversations wait for your team in the inbox.
• The AI Agent is not paused by business hours; it answers around the clock until you turn it off. If it should tell customers your hours, add them to its business knowledge.