Business Hours

Business hours send calls to one destination while you are open and to another one while you are closed, for example to the reception during the day and to an after-hours IVR menu or a voicemail box at night. They follow a weekly schedule, a list of holidays and optional special periods such as company holidays or an emergency routing, and can be switched to open or closed by hand or with a key on the phones. Business hours are managed under Dialplan → Business Hours.

Business hours have no internal number of their own. Use them as the destination of a provider’s incoming route or of an IVR key. Changes to the schedule and destinations take effect after you apply them, see Applying changes; the mode, the out-of-office key and the switches of the special periods take effect immediately.

Business hours list

Click Business hours above the list to add a schedule. The list shows:

The search field above the list finds business hours by name, description or feature code; how searching and paging work is described in Lists.

The buttons at the end of each row edit and delete the schedule. Deleting it removes the incoming routes and IVR keys that led to it.

Create or edit business hours

The form has five tabs: General, Weekly hours, Holidays, Special periods and Year at a glance. Save at the bottom saves all tabs together and returns to the list; Save and stay (Create and stay for new business hours) saves as well but keeps the page open, on the same tab and with the same number of months in the year at a glance. If an entry is wrong, the tab with the error opens and is marked with a red sign. A link to the page with #tab-specials (or another tab name) opens that tab directly.

General

Both destinations can be a phone, call group, conference room, application, IVR menu, voicemail box or Hang up, but not other business hours (only a special period can lead to other business hours). See Destinations.

Weekly hours

Each weekday has its own time ranges. Click Add time range to add one; a day can have several ranges, for example 08:00–12:00 and 13:00–17:00 for a lunch break. A day without ranges is Closed all day. The x button removes a range.

• The times are in the time zone of the system, see System → General Setup. A changed time zone applies right after Apply changes, no restart needed.
• The end is the first minute you are closed: 08:00–17:00 is open until 16:59.
• An end of 23:59 means until midnight.
• The end must be after the start. A range over midnight is entered as two ranges on two days.

New business hours start with Monday to Friday, 08:00–12:00 and 13:00–17:00. Week at a glance, next to the weekdays, shows the open times as green bars; on a saved schedule, a line marks the current time.

Holidays

On the days listed here you are closed all day, whatever the weekly hours say. Click Add day and enter the Date and an optional Name, for example Christmas Day. With every year the day repeats on the same date every year. Days that move every year, like Easter, are entered once per year. Up to 200 days can be listed.

Special periods

Special periods route calls completely differently for a while, without touching the weekly hours: Christmas and New Year, the summer company holidays, or an emergency routing that you switch on by hand. They take precedence over holidays and the weekly hours. Click Add special period and fill in one row per period:

A period applies when it is switched on and, if it has days, today is one of them. The first applying period in the list wins, so overlapping periods are allowed: put the more important one higher. Change the order with the arrows or by dragging the handle at the start of the row. The x button removes a period. Up to 50 periods can be listed.

Business hours used as the destination of a special period must not have special periods of their own, and business hours with special periods cannot be such a destination.

Year at a glance

The Year at a glance tab shows the next twelve months, one calendar per month; the buttons above the calendars show 24 or 36 months instead, and a link with ?months=48#tab-year up to 60 months. Each day is coloured by what applies on it according to the plan: the weekly hours (green), closed all day because the weekday has no opening hours (grey), a holiday (orange) or a special period (its own colour, named in the legend). Special periods count when they are switched on, in the order of the list, as for calls. Hover over a day to see its date and what applies. The calendar shows the entries in the form, also before you save them: change a holiday or the days of a special period, open the tab, and check the result. Nothing is saved until you click Save. Saved special periods count as they are switched right now; switching one at the top of the page redraws the calendar at once. If a date or time in another tab is not valid yet, the tab shows a hint instead of the calendars. Manual modes and the out-of-office key are not shown.

Switch between open and closed

On a saved schedule, the box at the top shows whether you are open Right now and lets you choose the Mode:

Click Switch now to change it. The mode takes effect immediately, without applying the configuration, and survives a restart. Asterisk must be running; otherwise the mode is unknown and cannot be changed.

Switching the mode also ends a temporary switch made with the out-of-office key.

If special periods are configured, the box also has one switch per period under Special periods. A click switches the period on or off immediately, without applying the configuration. A period that is on applies only on its days, if it has any; the tooltip says On, applies today, On, but not today or Off. The same switches are on the list page.

The mode and the out-of-office key are runtime state and are not part of a backup. Restoring a backup (or importing a configuration) sets all business hours back to Automatic and ends every out-of-office key state; special periods are switched on or off as they were saved in the backup.

Which rule applies

When a call arrives, and for the lamp of the out-of-office key, the first matching rule decides:

1. The mode Open or Closed set on this page, with the REST API or MCP.
2. A temporary switch with the out-of-office key.
3. The first special period in the list that is on and whose days include today: calls go to its destination.
4. A holiday: closed.
5. The weekly opening hours: open or closed.

Rules 3 to 5 together are Automatic. While a special period applies, Open (by mode or key) sends calls to the normal When open destination as on a normal working day, and Closed to When closed. A special period whose destination is not business hours counts as closed; one that leads to other business hours is open or closed as those are.

Out-of-office key

With the Feature code of the business hours, every phone can get an out-of-office key: its lamp shows the state for everybody, and a press switches it.

• The lamp is lit while closed and dark while open, whatever the reason: opening hours, holiday, special period, key or mode. It follows the schedule within about a minute and changes immediately on a press.
• A press always switches to the opposite state, for example to open the office during the company holidays or to close it early. You hear “enabled” (now open) or “disabled” (now closed).
• This switch is temporary: it ends by itself at the next change of the automatic state, at midnight at the latest. “Closed” pressed at 15:00 ends at 17:00 when the office closes anyway; a forgotten press never keeps the office open over a weekend or holiday.
• Pressed again while the switch is active, the key returns to Automatic (“cancelled”). It also ends a mode set on this page; if that mode equals the automatic state, the key switches to the opposite instead, so the lamp always changes.

The Feature code of a special period works the same way for that period: a press switches it on (“activated”) or off (“de-activated”), and its lamp is lit while the period is switched on, for example for an emergency routing. A period that is on but not due today keeps its lamp lit.

The lamps are kept up to date by the PBX’s monitor service; after a restart of Asterisk they are correct again within a minute.

Set up the keys on Snom phones

1. Open the phone’s web interface and go to Function Keys.
2. Choose a free key, set its Type to BLF and enter the feature code as Number, for example *31 for the out-of-office key or *32 for a special period.
3. Use the account (identity) that is registered with PhonixPBX as context, and save.

Phone users find the key described under Using your phone.

Route calls outside office hours

1. Create an IVR menu or choose a phone with voicemail for the time you are closed.
2. Add business hours, set the weekly ranges and holidays, and choose When open (for example the reception call group) and When closed (the after-hours menu).
3. Click Create and apply the changes.
4. Set the business hours as the destination of your number’s incoming route.

Company holidays and emergency routing

1. Create the destinations, for example a holiday IVR menu and business hours Christmas that are open 09:00–12:00.
2. In your main business hours, add the special periods in this order:
   • Emergency: destination the emergency phone, no days, feature code *32.
   • Christmas: destination the business hours Christmas, 24 December to 2 January, every year, on.
   • Summer 2027: destination the holiday menu, with its dates, on.
3. Save and apply. Over Christmas, calls follow the shorter hours; pressing the *32 key switches the emergency routing on, which wins over Christmas because it is first in the list. The out-of-office key still works above both.