I. Intro

Who can perform these steps: Help Desk administrators. 

In Help Desk, you can adjust the business hours and holiday schedules of Help Desk agents. The business hours and holidays that you define can be applied either to all agent skills or only to selected agent skills. 

You can also configure automated replies if users contact agents outside of business hours.

II. Steps

Configure business hours for all skills

With these steps, the business hours that you define are applied to all agent skills.

Configure business hours

In Help Desk Admin, click Settings > Business Hours and select Use unified business hours. Then, select an option from the Time Zone drop-down list. 

Set the business hours for the help desk in the Business Hours fields. The actual business hours are based on the time zone that is selected. 

To add multiple business hours, click Add Hours.

Specify holidays 

To configure holidays, click Add Holiday, enter the holiday name and the start and end dates, and then click Confirm.

On the Add holiday page, administrators can also add rescheduled workdays. Rescheduled workdays are days on which agents are available for the help desk outside of the defined business hours. 

The total available customer service hours of the help desk are calculated as follows:

 (Help Desk Business Hours ∩ Customer Service Period - Time Off) ∪ Rescheduled Workdays

For example, let's assume the help desk business hours are set to every day, and the customer service period is Monday to Friday. Public Holiday A is January 1st to 6th, and the 30th and 31st of the preceding month, December, is Saturday and Sunday respectively. Meanwhile, help desk agents are still required to work on Saturday, December 30th and Sunday, December 31st, days of the week on which they would typically not be required to work. In this scenario, you must select December 30th and 31st as rescheduled workdays. Now, the help desk will be available every Monday to Friday in December and January plus Saturday, December 30th and Sunday, December 31st. But, the help desk will not be available from January 1st to 6th.

Note: An agent's business hours on rescheduled workdays are the same as the regular business hours. If multiple different business hours are defined for multiple different days, the business hours of the rescheduled workdays are the aggregate of the defined regular business hours. 

To import a holiday calendar, on the Business hours page click Import Holidays, and then select a holiday calendar. 

To modify or delete a holiday that is defined in help desk, under the Set up holidays section click the ⋮ More icon on the right side of the listed holiday.

Set automated replies

You can configure automated replies that are sent to users in the help desk when they request agent service outside of business hours. You can select a predefined message or create a customized message.

Note: If multi-language mode is on, the automated reply can be set in multiple languages. Select a language first before selecting the content of the automated reply.

Set skill-based business hours

With these steps, the business hours that you define are applied only to selected agent skills. 

Configure business hours for existing skills

In Help Desk Admin, click Settings > Business Hours and select Set skill-based business hours. Then, click Add Business Hours.

Note: When setting business hours, you can select either the Use unified business hours option or the Set skill-based business hours option. You cannot enable both options at the same time.

Enter a name for the business hours, and select the skills to which the business hours apply.

Set the business hours and holidays for the agents that are associated with the selected skills. For detailed instructions, refer to the "Configure business hours" and "Specify holidays" sections above.

When a user is transferred to agent service, Help Desk automatically matches them with an agent based on the ticket information. If the consultation falls outside the business hours of the assigned agent, the bot will send an automated reply. To learn more, refer to the "Set automated replies" section above.

After completing the settings, click Add > Save and Release.

Note: If you select Set skill-based business hours, skills without designated business hours will not be available through agent service. A notification specifying the number of skills without set business hours will be displayed.

Configure business hours for newly defined skills

When Set skill-based business hours is enabled and a new skill is defined under Settings > Ticket Assignment > Skill-based routing, Help Desk automatically sends a notification to remind you to configure business hours for the newly defined skill.

Set agent service hours

To adjust an agent's service time zone and service hours, on the left navigation of Help Desk click Agent Management > Add Agent. Then, you can configure the Service time zone and Service hours fields to values that are within the Help Desk's business hours.

Agents returning to work after a holiday will be automatically added to the agent group to solve tickets.

Tickets outside of business hours will be classified and handled as bot service tickets.

Note: If a user is already in the help desk queue for their ticket, the agent will handle the ticket even if the end of the business hours has been reached. New queues will not be initiated outside business hours. 

III. FAQs