Set Up Hours of Operation

The hours of operation profile page displays a message with the current date and time. It indicates whether your contact center is currently open or closed based on the operation hours currently in place. This message is based on your user time zone. However, when you configure hours of operation, the profile is based on your business unit time zone. Keep this difference in mind if you see conflicting or confusing information.

The top of the hours of operation profile page displays a message telling you the current date and time according to the business unit time zone. This note indicates whether your contact center is currently open or closed based on the hours of operation currently in place. Be aware that this is only an estimate, as certain configurations – such as custom scripting – can override the displayed result, making it inaccurate.

Bo Peep is a manager in the Operations department at Classics, Inc. Her team, the Shepherds, deals with lost book claims from field representatives. The business unit time zone for Classics is United States Eastern. Bo is a remote employee, and her time zone is United States Pacific.

Bo configures an hours of operation profile with a start time of 8:00 in the morning and an end time of 5:00 in the evening. She does this work at 4:00 in the evening Pacific time. As a result, with the new profile in place, the message at the top of the page says the contact center is open. In fact, the contact center is closed since the profile is based on U.S. Eastern time, where it's 7:00 in the evening.

Create Hours of Operation Profile

Required permissions: Hours of Operation Create

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to Contact Settings > Hours of Operation.

  3. Click Create New.
  4. Give the profile a descriptive Profile Name and a Description if you want one.

  5. Specify whether you want to Create a Blank Hours of Operation Profile or Create an Hours of Operation Profile by Copying Another. If you choose to copy an existing profile, select the profile you want to copy from the drop-down.

    In the Override Branches section, the default value is Normal. Override branches are available only after you create a profile.

    Image of hours of operation wizard in CXone

  6. Scroll down to Normal Hours of Operation. Set the open hours for each day of the week. If you need to set more than one open period in a single day, configure the first set of hours, then select Additional Hours and configure the next set of hours. For days when your center is not open, select Closed All Day.
  7. Click Next.

  8. If you want to modify the hours of operation for a single day, click Add Holiday. Enter a Holiday Name, select the date you're modifying, and set the hours of operation for that day. Click OK.

    Image of the Add Holiday dialog

  9. Click Next.
  10. Review your new profile. If you want to verify the hours of operation profile is working how you want it to, use the Test Open Hours section.
  11. Click Create Profile.

Assign Skills to Hours of Operation Profile

Required permissions: Hours of Operation Edit

You can set hours of operation for your business unit. You can also create profiles to assign to ACD skills. This enables your contact routing to take into account different departments with different hours. In addition to adding skills to the hours of operation profile, you can also connect an inbound skill and profile when creating the skill in the Re-Skill Hours of Operation Profile field. If you add an inbound skill to a profile, as described in this section, the profile automatically updates in the skill's Re-Skill Hours of Operation Profile field. If an agent attempts to re-skill a contact and it is after the designated Hours of Operation time, an agent will receive a notification warning. If the agent selects Proceed, the contact hangs in queue until an agent with that skill becomes available, or, if you added a branch to the script to facilitate after-hours scenarios (such as playing an after-hours message).

Image of Skills tab in an hours of operation profile

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to Contact Settings > Hours of Operation.

  3. Click the profile you want to edit.
  4. Click the Skills tab.
  5. Select each ACD skill you want to add to this hours of operation profile.
  6. Click Add Skills.

Override the Normal Hours of Operation

Required permissions: Hours of Operation Edit

Override branches enable you to quickly change your normal contact routing rules in case of inclement weather, emergency, or other special circumstance. You can set an expiration date up to 7 days ahead, which automatically reverts back to the standard hours of operation. If you don't set an expiration, the override is in effect until you turn it off.

  1. If it's not already there, open Studio and add the override branch to your Studio contact routing script. For example, add a Weather branch (see example) in your script if you want to create a weather override branch in CXone.

  2. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  3. Go to Contact Settings > Hours of Operation.

  4. Click the profile you want to edit.
  5. Click Edit.
  6. In the Override Branches section, select the branch you want to use.
  7. For Expiration Date, enter a date or use the calendar picker to select one. Use the drop-down to select a time within the 7-day range. If you don't set an expiration date and time, you must manually turn off the override.
  8. Click Done.