Setting Time-Based Rules and Business Hours
Configure your AI to behave differently based on time of day, day of week, or holidays. Set business hours, after-hours behavior, holiday schedules, and seasonal adjustments to provide the right experience at the right time.
🎯 What You Will Learn
- Setting up regular business hours with different behaviors for open vs closed
- Creating after-hours greetings, routing, and escalation rules
- Managing holiday schedules with recurring and one-off entries
- Building seasonal adjustments for businesses with variable hours
⚠️ Prerequisites
- Your business hours for each day of the week
- A list of holidays your business observes
- Your after-hours policy (voicemail, emergency routing, etc.)
- FORAI account with basic setup complete
🚀 Step-by-Step Guide
Access Time Controls settings
Navigate to Settings > Time Controls. The main view shows a weekly calendar grid where you can visually set business hours for each day. Your current timezone is displayed at the top -- confirm it's correct.
Set your regular business hours
Click and drag on each day to set your open hours. For most businesses this is Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM. You can set different hours for different days (e.g., Saturday 10AM-2PM). The AI uses these hours to determine open vs closed behavior.
Configure after-hours behavior
Under 'After Hours Settings', define what happens when someone calls outside business hours. Options: custom after-hours greeting, take a message, route to on-call staff, offer callback scheduling, or provide emergency-only transfer.
Add holiday schedules
Go to the 'Holidays' tab and add your observed holidays. Choose from preset national holidays or create custom entries. For each holiday, set the behavior: closed all day, modified hours, or special greeting with voicemail.
Set your timezone correctly
Confirm your timezone under Settings > Time Controls > Timezone. If your business spans multiple timezones, set the timezone for each phone number independently. This ensures callers in each region get the correct hours-based behavior.
Create time-based routing overrides
Link time controls to routing rules: 'During lunch (12-1PM), route to backup receptionist', 'After 6PM, route urgent calls to on-call manager'. These overrides take precedence over standard routing during the specified time windows.
Test different time scenarios
Use the 'Time Simulator' to test how your AI behaves at different times. Simulate a call at 2AM on a holiday, at noon on a Tuesday, and at 5:01PM on a Friday. Verify the greeting, routing, and available actions are correct for each.
💡 Pro Tips
Always set your after-hours greeting to acknowledge the time: 'Thanks for calling after hours. We're currently closed but...' This sets expectations and reduces caller frustration.
Use the 'Gradual Transition' feature to change AI behavior 15 minutes before closing. The AI starts mentioning 'We'll be closing soon' in conversations, which reduces last-minute lengthy calls.
For businesses open 7 days a week, still set 'quiet hours' (e.g., 11PM-6AM) with modified behavior. Very late callers often need different handling than daytime callers.
Schedule holiday overrides at least 2 weeks in advance. Last-minute changes can cause confusion if your team forgets to update after the holiday.
⚠️ Important Warning
Always test your configuration with the built-in simulator before deploying to live callers. Changes to voice settings, routing rules, and workflows take effect within 60 seconds. Monitor the first 5-10 live calls after any change and revert immediately if you notice issues.
⚙️ Troubleshooting
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