Foundation includes 1 business hours schedule. Horizon and Frontier include unlimited schedules. See plans and pricing.
Where business hours are used
Every feature below reads a schedule’s weekly hours and its overrides together. A date covered by an override uses the override’s hours, and every other date uses the weekly hours.- SLAs: an SLA target that references one or more schedules only counts time while one of them is open. With a 4 hour first response target and a Mon–Fri 09:00–17:00 schedule, a thread that arrives at 16:30 on a Friday is due at 12:30 on Monday rather than 20:30 on Friday. A target that references no schedules counts time 24/7. See How SLA time is counted.
- Auto-responders: the Outside business hours condition matches when every schedule in your workspace is closed. See Auto-responses.
- Workflow conditions: a workflow can check whether the current time is outside one schedule, or outside all of them. For example, page the on-call team only during EMEA working hours. See Workflows.
- Workflow waits: a wait set to count business hours only counts time while a selected schedule is open. Plain works out when the wait ends at the moment it starts, so a running wait doesn’t move if you change the hours afterwards.
- Live Chat availability: the Live Chat widget shows your team as online or offline based on business hours and whether users are online, so customers know whether to expect an immediate reply or an emailed follow-up.
Create a schedule
1
Open business hours
Go to Settings → Business hours and click Add schedule.
2
Name it
Give the schedule a name such as
EMEA Hours or US Hours.3
Choose the timezone
Pick the timezone. The schedule’s weekly hours and every one of its overrides are read in this timezone.
4
Set the weekly hours
For each day of the week, set the working time ranges. A typical office team uses Mon–Fri 09:00–17:00. A team running split shifts might use 07:00–11:00 and 14:00–20:00 on the same day. A day with no ranges is closed.
5
Save
SLA targets and workflow conditions can now reference this schedule.
Multiple schedules
Create one schedule per team or region. Each schedule has its own name, timezone, weekly hours, and overrides. Reference specific schedules in SLA targets and workflow conditions to apply the right hours to the right threads. When an SLA target references more than one schedule, time counts whenever any of them is open. An override only changes the schedule it belongs to: if London is closed for a bank holiday and New York is open, an SLA on both schedules keeps counting during New York’s hours.Add holidays and one-off closures with overrides
An override replaces a schedule’s weekly hours on a range of dates. Use one for a public holiday, a company offsite, or a day your team closes early. On each date in the range, the override’s hours apply instead of the weekly hours, and a date with no hours is closed. Overrides belong to one schedule. Open a schedule from Settings → Business hours and find them on the Overrides card at the bottom of the page. The schedule’s timeline shows each override’s hours in place of the weekly hours, and marks closed dates.Add an override
1
Open the schedule
Go to Settings → Business hours, open the schedule, and click Add override on the Overrides card.
2
Name it
Enter a Name, for example
Christmas 2026.3
Pick the dates
Choose From and To. Both dates are included, and both are read in the schedule’s timezone.
4
Set the hours
Under Hours, each date in the range has its own row. Leave a date empty to close it, or add time ranges to open it for those hours only. Apply to all copies one date’s hours to every date in the range. The preview above the rows compares the weekly hours with the override’s hours.
5
Save
The override applies from the moment you save.
- It can’t start before today in the schedule’s timezone. Today itself can be given new hours at any time of day
- It can cover at most 92 days
- It can’t overlap another override on the same schedule. To change the hours inside an existing override, edit that override
Edit, copy, or delete an override
The Overrides card lists overrides on two tabs: Upcoming for overrides that haven’t ended, and Past for overrides whose last date is before today. Open the menu on a row to manage it:- Edit: change the name, dates, or hours. The first date can’t move to before today. An override on the Past tab can’t be edited in the app
- Copy to other business hours: copy the override to other schedules. Each schedule gets its own copy with the same dates and hours, read in that schedule’s timezone, and later edits to the original don’t change the copies. If a schedule already has an override on those dates, confirm to replace it, or uncheck that schedule. An override that has already started can’t be copied
- Delete override: the schedule’s weekly hours apply to those dates again. This can’t be undone
How changing hours affects SLAs
Changes to weekly hours and overrides apply to SLA targets that are already counting down, not only to new ones. Plain keeps the time a target has already used, and spreads the time left over the hours as they now stand. Closing a day pushes deadlines later, and adding hours pulls them earlier. Editing hours for time that has already passed doesn’t change what an SLA has counted. See How SLA time is counted for the full rules.What happens outside business hours
When a schedule is closed, whether by its weekly hours or an override:- SLA targets that reference only that schedule stop counting. Targets with no schedules keep counting 24/7
- Workflow conditions checking outside business hours for that schedule evaluate to true. Workflows without that condition keep running, so triage, assignment, and labeling don’t stop
- Live Chat shows as offline when all schedules are closed. Customers see the offline message you’ve configured