You can set a schedule for your Zendesk Support instance by selecting a time zone, defining business hours, and setting up holidays.
If you don't provide 24/7 support to your customers, you can acknowledge your availability and give customers a better sense of when they can expect a personal response to their support requests. Even if you do provide 24/7 support, you can enhance your workflow by setting up views, triggers, automations, and reports based on your business hours set in your schedule.
Watch the video below to learn how schedules can impact customer experience and team reporting.
Setting a schedule for Zendesk Support
Your schedule includes a time zone and specific business hours each day in a weekly schedule for Zendesk Support.
You can also set up holidays as exceptions to the business hours set in your schedule. You can add as many holidays as you like, and they will be treated as outside of business hours and not count toward any metrics you measure in business hours.
After you set a schedule, you can create business rules based on the business hours in your schedule. You can also use business hours in reporting.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Schedules . - Do one of the following, depending on your plan type:
- On Suite Growth and Professional or Support Professional, you can click the default schedule and modify it using the steps in this procedure.
- On Suite Enterprise and Enterprise Plus or Support Enterprise, you can modify the default schedule or click Add schedule to create a new schedule.
- On the schedules page, enter a Schedule name, choose a Time zone, then click Save.
- In the Weekly schedule section, keep the preset business hours or modify the business hours and click Save.
- To move a block of time, drag the time block up or down on that day.
- To change the start or end time, drag the top or bottom of the time block.
- To remove hours from a day, click the X in the upper-right corner of the time block. The day displays Closed.
- To add hours to a closed day, click anywhere on the closed day. A time block appears where you clicked.
The hours you set are relative to the time zone set for your Zendesk account (unless you are on an Enterprise plan, and you selected another time zone for your schedule). See Setting the time zone and format for Zendesk Support.
- When you are finished, click Save.
- Click Holidays, then click, Add holiday, if you want to set any holidays as exceptions to your scheduled business hours.
You can schedule holidays up to two years in advance.
- Enter a Name for the holiday, then click in the first date field to pick a start date, and click in the second date field to pick an end date.
You can choose a single day (by picking the same start and end date) or a date range (by picking different start and end dates). You cannot set a partial day holiday.
- When you are finished, click Confirm. You can add multiple holidays by clicking Add holiday again.
The holidays you add appear in your list of holidays in chronological order.
- (Enterprise plans only) Click the back arrow to return to the Schedules admin page, then click Add schedule if you want to set multiple schedules.
Note: If you set up multiple schedules, you must create triggers to apply your schedules to tickets (see Applying your schedules to tickets.Now you can use business hours in business rules, reports, Talk, and Liquid markup:- For more information about business rules and reporting based on business hours, see Creating business rules based on business hours and Reporting based on business hours.
- For information on assigning Zendesk Support schedules to individual Talk numbers, see Using multiple schedules for Talk. Talk numbers with a Zendesk Support schedule will only route calls during Zendesk Support scheduled business hours.
Tip: If you added holidays, be sure to check out Liz Rosen's community tip, Holiday auto-responses made easy.
Deleting a schedule
If you are on an Enterprise plan, and have created multiple schedules, you can delete a schedule if you need to. When you do so, it's immediately removed from your account, and your Zendesk will use calendar hours, unless you have another schedule in place or add a schedule back to your account.
If you want to stop using business hours in your account, remove all schedules.
To delete a schedule
- From the list of schedules, hover over the schedule you want to delete.
- From the schedule options menu, click Delete.
Managing your holidays
Your scheduled holidays appear in chronological order in your holidays list. You can click any holiday to expand it and show details or to collapse it and hide details.
Your upcoming holidays are shown by default, but you can filter by past holidays. You can edit or delete, any upcoming holidays.
- Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Settings > Schedules.
- (Enterprise plans only) Click the name of a schedule on the Schedules admin page.
- Click the Holidays tab.
- From the list of schedules, hover over the schedule you want to edit.
- From the holiday options menu, click Edit.
- Make any changes you need.
- When you are finished, click Confirm.
- In the Holidays tab of your schedule, click the options menu beside the holiday you want to delete, then select Delete.
- Click Delete holiday to confirm the deletion.
The holiday is removed from your list of holidays.
Applying your schedules to tickets
You need to create a trigger for each schedule you want to use for your tickets.
- Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Triggers.
- On the Triggers page, click Add Trigger.
- On the Add new trigger page, enter a name and optional description for your trigger.
- Add conditions for your trigger.
The conditions will determine which tickets get the schedule you set in the next step. For example, you might chose the condition ticket group is to set a schedule for a specific group. Or you might decide to set the schedule based on the ticket's brand or status. It's up to you.
- Add the action Ticket: Set schedule, then select one of your schedules from the dropdown list.
- Click Create.
If you need to find out which schedule is applied to a ticket, you can view that ticket's events (see Viewing a ticket's audit trail).
Creating business rules based on business hours and holidays
You can create views, SLA policies, triggers, and automations based on your business hours. You can create triggers based on holidays.
Any views, triggers, or automations based on business hours also take scheduled holidays into account, and consider them as outside of your business hours, unless you have set up a holidays trigger.
You can also use the Liquid placeholder for business hours in macros, triggers, and automations.
ticket.in_business_hoursViews based on business hours
You can create views based on business hours by using any of the "Hours since" conditions:
-
Hours since created
-
Hours since open
-
Hours since pending
-
Hours since on-hold
-
Hours since solved
-
Hours since closed
-
Hours since assigned
-
Hours since update
-
Hours since requester update
-
Hours since assignee update
-
Hours since due date (for tickets with the type set to Task)
-
Hours until due date (for tickets with the type set to Task)
-
Hours since last SLA breach
-
Hours until next SLA breach
Then, select one of the "(business)" options to calculate time based on your business hours.
If you are on an Enterprise plan and have multiple schedules, views based on business hours will use the schedule applied to the ticket.
For information about creating views, see Using views to manage ticket workflow.
Triggers based on business hours
You can create triggers based on business hours using the "Ticket: Within business hours" condition.
This enables you to build triggers that fire based on whether an event occurs during business hours or outside of business hours. For example, you might create a trigger to escalate a ticket filed by a VIP customer outside of business hours.
If you are on an Enterprise plan and have multiple schedules, triggers based on business hours will use the schedule applied to the ticket.
For information about creating triggers, see Creating and managing triggers.
Automations based on business hours
You can create automations based on business hours by using any of the "Hours since" conditions:
-
Hours since created
-
Hours since open
-
Hours since pending
-
Hours since on-hold
-
Hours since solved
-
Hours since closed
-
Hours since assigned
-
Hours since update
-
Hours since requester update
-
Hours since assignee update
-
Hours since due date (for tickets with the type set to Task)
-
Hours until due date (for tickets with the type set to Task)
-
Hours since last SLA breach
-
Hours until next SLA breach
Then, select one of the "(business)" options to calculate time based on your business hours.
If you are on an Enterprise plan and have multiple schedules, automations based on business hours will use the schedule applied to the ticket.
For information about creating automations, see Streamlining workflows with time-based events and automations.
Triggers based on holidays
You can create triggers based on holidays using the "Ticket: On a holiday?" condition. This enables you to build triggers that fire based on whether an event occurs during a holiday.
This condition is set to yes for the full day of the holiday, not just during your normal business hours that day. For example, if you have a Monday holiday and your normal business hours on Mondays are 9am to 5pm, the holiday is considered the full calendar day, including hours outside of your normal hours, such as 10pm.
If you are on an Enterprise plan and have multiple schedules, this condition respects the list of holidays set in the schedule applied to the ticket.
Creating triggers based on multiple schedule
Use the "Ticket: Schedule" condition to build triggers that fire based on the schedule applied to a ticket.
Use "Ticket: Within schedule" condition to build triggers that fire based on a selected schedule.
You can use the "Ticket: Set schedule" action to apply a schedule to a ticket. For more information, see Applying your schedules to tickets.
Reporting based on business hours
You can use Zendesk Explore to build reports based on business hours set in your schedule.
If you are on an Enterprise plan and have set up multiple schedules, reports based on business hours use the schedule that is set for the ticket (see Applying a schedule to your tickets). To find out which schedule is applied to a ticket, you can view that ticket's events (see Viewing a ticket's audit trail).
You can build reports based on business hours using any of the following Explore metrics:
- First reply time - Business hours - The duration between when the ticket was created and the first public agent reply on the ticket within business hours.
- First resolution time - Business hours - The duration between when the ticket was created and its first resolution within business hours.
- Full resolution time - Business hours - The duration in minutes between when the ticket was created and its latest resolution within business hours.
- Requester wait time - Business hours - The number of minutes a ticket spends in the New, Open, or On-hold status during business hours. This number is only measured after a ticket's status is changed from New/Open/On-hold to Pending/Solved/Closed
- On-hold time - Business hours - The total combined time in minutes that the ticket was in the on-hold status during business hours.
- Agent wait time - Business hours - The total combined time that the ticket was in the pending status within business hours. It measures how long agents were waiting for the customer replies within business hours.
For information about Explore see Zendesk Explore resources.
37 Comments
We are trialling Zen Desk plus - and I am unable to set business hours and holidays. I have toggled "enable business hours" but everytime I leave the page and return my changes have reverted despite it saying "saved". What am I doing wrong here?
Thanks, Pippa
Hi, are business hours (or custom schedules) exposed through the API at all? Specifically, I'd like to be able to do what @Jeanette mentions above - display business hours on a form.
Why don't you give an option to buy Multiple Schedules as an add-on? Upgrade to Enterprise would double the expenses and it wouldn't give any other value for us with Plus (~Professional) plan except for this..
This is also needed for Voice channel. Own schedule for each support number sounds kind of basic feature for me, and without it we are forced to consider other solutions :(
We have a professional license and based on the article I take it that we only have one schedule available so in my case where we have an agent in Western Canada and an agent in Eastern Canada we will not be able to accurate use the business hour? There is a 3-hour time different between the two ends of Canada.
Hi Zendesk,
We have business hours enabled and an 8am - 5pm, M-F schedule set. However, when pulling metrics from Insights on Friday then reviewing those same numbers the follow Monday, I'm reasonably confident those business hours are not recognized. It's clear night and weekend hours are being considered. Beyond the enabling business hours, is there something else I need to configure?
@Chris Sindt
Check the metrics you used in your report. There are calendar hours-based and there are business hour-based metrics. In order to use the business hour properly you need to pick the metrics that calculates based on business hours; there is usually a [Biz Hr] in front of the metrics you can select.
Hope this helps
A condition for 'in business hours' would be great for Automations too. We have a number of automations that we using business hours, so should not run until we are in hours again, however my systems for delaying notifications fail on a few levels.
If I have a requirement for the ticket to be open to run... as well as the business hours condition... if business hour condition is triggered, but the ticket is closed, then reopens outside business hours - it will run.
So I put a condition based on latest update by requester... but if a CC updates the ticket, it fires.
If I use a condition based on any update it works , but what if I don't want that?
An option to prevent a trigger firing outside business hours would be good :)
Also if an agent other than the requester updates the ticket this can cause the same issues.
I want to set office hours as per the groups, as there are teams that work in different countries and have different work schedules. Please let me know if that is possible and if yes then how can we set those.
Regards,
Aditya
Hey Aditya,
If you're on the Enterprise plan you'll have the ability to create multiple schedules by selecting Add Schedule under Admin>Settings>Schedules>. If you're on the Professional plan you'll be limited to one schedule. You can then apply schedules to tickets using Triggers as mentioned here.
If you've set up triggers to auto-assign tickets to groups you can edit your existing triggers to also apply a certain schedule to that ticket based on the group that ticket is assigned to. Your trigger conditions can look similar to the following:
Meets all of the following conditions
Ticket > is > Updated
Group > is > Test
Actions
Set Schedule > Test
The conditions will vary based on your workflow but hopefully this gives you a better idea of how to set this up.
Hope this helps!
On Enterprise, we want to only fire off CSATs within a certain window. I created a CSAT Schedule.
However, I can't get the Automation to run off the CSAT schedule. The ticket needs to stay set on our usual Business Hours Schedule for normal ticket processes. We just want the CSAT Automation to fire off between certain hours on certain days... Can't seem to get that to work.
Any ideas?
Hey Heather,
We will most likely need to take a look at some ticket examples as well as the automation conditions you've set up on your account. I'm going to get a ticket created on your behalf and passed over to our Support team so they can follow up with you.
Cheers!
Hello,
I want to create a view for my agents based on a fixed time as to when the tickets came in.
For instance, I want a view that shows all tickets older than 9am from today. Once this view is set, after 9am, it shouldn't increase.
Currently, I have to change the view every hour as it is set "Calendar: More than: (# of hour difference to 9am)" to set it for the appropriate time.
Please let me know if it's possible to set a fixed time so I don't have to keep changing it every hour.
Kind Regards,
Chris
Hi Christopher,
I'm afraid there's no view condition that will look at the hour a ticket was created unfortunately. The best alternative I can think of is if you have multiple schedules available on your current plan, then creating a schedule specifically for before 9AM and one for after 9 AM.
For example, Schedule A would have the hours 1 AM to 9 AM set as shown in the screenshot below:
Schedule B would have hours 9AM to 5 PM set as shown below:
You can then create a trigger that will apply a tag if the ticket was created within Schedule B's hours:
After the above is set up you can then create a view that shows any tickets that contain that tag. I realize this may not be the solution you're looking for but I do hope it helps!
Hi,
Is there a way to apply a schedule based on the geography the ticket was opened? Can Zendesk detect where a ticket is opened?
Thanks
Hey Julian,
The closest condition available is the Requester Timezone as mentioned in our Trigger conditions and actions reference
You could then set the schedule based on the timezone of the requester.
Hope this helps!
In 'settings > schedule' I have a schedule called Phone Hours; I changed the Monday-Friday hours, but is that all I need to do to ensure that we don't get calls (or rather, we get hit for missing calls during those off-hours) outside our set phone schedule? In other words, are our phones on/active only during the time that is set in that schedule?
Hi VK,
If you've set up your schedule under Admin>Settings>Schedules and you want this to apply to Talk, you'll need to set that schedule for your Talk number. To do this, you can navigate to Admin>Channels>Talk>Numbers>Select your number>Routing. You can fount out more about this option by viewing the following article: Routing calls based on business hours (Talk Team, Professional, and Enterprise)
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Cheers!
@Brett thank you for that, it looks like the routing schedule dropdown was already set to my schedule, so I'm all set. Thanks!
Glad to hear it VK :)
If you have any other questions let us know!
Hi Brett,
the article mentions that it should be possible to clone holidays in my schedule. I can't find that option anywhere though. I checked it in multiple instances.
The Zendesk support team said the function was deactivated for some reason.
Any plans to reactivate it?
Thanks!
Hey Fabio,
It doesn't look like there's anything on the roadmap to reactivate this feature at this time. I'll pass your feedback along to the appropriate team so they're aware of your interest in this functionality.
Cheers!
Fabio Strasser Try the free Holidate app in the marketplace.
Brett Bowser Would love to see a future iteration that would allow for more granular holiday scheduling (IE - We're closing at noon the day before Christmas and 3PM the day before New Year's). The workaround right now is to manually adjust business schedules for that week, and then manually adjust back the following Monday.
Hello Brandon,
Really appreciate you sharing this app as a workaround for Fabio Strasser's ask, which I've shared a link to below.
Holidate App
Regarding your product feedback, I strongly suggest posting that request in our product feedback forms, so our devs have to opportunity to look it over and potentially add it to our roadmap. I've included a link below to our feedback forum.
Best regards.
Hi Brandon,
thanks!
I know the app and I'm using it already for some of our instances. But since it's still only available for like 10 countries, it unfortunately doesn't cover all of our instances.
This article needs to be updated. A lot of the screenshots are no longer accurate. For example: it is no longer "ticket: within business hours", it is just "within business hours?"
When I attempt to do triggers based on schedules for holidays, my trigger does not work. See my screenshot for my settings. If I remove the Within (schedule) condition, it works. I would like to be able to send different emails to users based on US and EMEIA holidays with different messaging. Thanks!
I figured out my issue above. Disregard!!!!
Thanks for the update Mistyamber :)
Glad you were able to figure things out on your end!
The mistake I made above is that I forgot to set the trigger to apply the schedule.
Is there a way to apply a schedule based on the time the ticket was received? I'm not finding that option. Both our US and EMEIA teams work out of the same view/group but have different work schedules. I'd like to be able to set schedules based on the time of day the ticket is received.
Hey Mistyamber,
There's no condition available that will look at the time the ticket was received. You can only look at whether or not the ticket was submitted within a certain schedule. Screenshot below:
Let me know if there's anything else I can assist with.
Cheers!
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