Team working hours

Set a team's hours

Only the account owner and admins can change a team.

1. Open Teams

   Open Settings (the gear icon) and click Teams.

2. Open the team

   Click the pencil next to the team. A new team gets its hours after you add it: add the team first, then open it again.

3. Switch on its own working hours

   Under Working hours, switch on Its own working hours. A small label shows if the team is Open now or Closed now.

4. Pick the time zone and the days

   Pick the Time zone the hours are in. Switch each day on or off, and set when it opens and closes, for example 09:00 to 18:00. The closing time must be after the opening time on the same day. To stay open past midnight, end the day at 23:59 and open the next day at 00:00: the team then stays open through the night.

5. Write the off-hours reply

   Type the Off-hours reply, up to 1,000 characters. For example: "Thanks for writing to Sales. We are closed now and will reply from 9 am." Leave it empty to send your account's off-hours message instead, when that message is on. If it is off, nothing is sent.

6. Click Save team

   The hours are saved with the team.

What customers get

• A customer who writes to a chat of the team while it is closed gets the team's off-hours reply.
• A chat that is sent to the team's queue while it is closed, for example by a bot step or the AI agent, also gets the reply, when the customer wrote after the team closed and within the last 24 hours.
• Each chat gets the reply once for each time the team is closed, from closing time to the next opening. A customer who writes five times in one night gets one reply. If they write again the next night, they get it again.
• The chat waits in the team's queue, and the team finds it there when they are back.
• A team that takes turns or gives chats to the least busy person hands out nothing while it is closed. New chats wait in the queue and go out when the team opens.
• While the team is closed, the New chat notification goes only to people on the team who are online right now: the website open and their status Available. If nobody is online, nobody is notified. This is the same for a team that picks by hand.
• If nobody replies in moves nothing while the team is closed. The time starts again when the team opens.
• A team without its own hours shares and moves chats at any time, as before.
• The reply goes to WhatsApp chats. Instagram chats keep your account's off-hours message.
• No reply goes out while Meta AI is answering the chat, so it keeps the chat.

With your account's automatic replies

Your account has its own working hours, welcome message and off-hours message in Settings, Live Chat. See Live chat settings. This is how the two work together:

• A customer never gets two off-hours replies for the same closed time. If your account's off-hours message already went out, the team's reply does not follow, and the other way round.
• Inside the team's hours, your account's welcome message goes out as before, when it is on.
• A chat that is not in a team yet follows your account's hours at the moment the customer writes. So when a bot or the AI agent sends it to a team after that message, your account's off-hours message may already have gone out, even when the team is open. This is the usual case for chats that a bot or the AI agent hands to a team. The team's reply then does not follow, and no welcome message goes out for the next 30 minutes. After that, while the team is open, the customer's next message gets the welcome message, when it is on.

Switch it off

Open the team, switch off Its own working hours and click Save team. The team follows your account's working hours and messages again.

Related

• Teams: queues, team leads and how new chats are shared
• Live chat settings: your account's working hours and automatic replies
• Team report: how each team and person is doing