Setting your business hours

A schedule tells Zendesk when you are open. Everything about timing depends on it, so it comes before SLAs and reminders.

A schedule tells Zendesk when you are open. Everything about timing depends on it, so it comes before SLAs and reminders.

Create a schedule

1. Open Admin Center, then Objects and rules, then Schedules.
2. Add a schedule and name it.
3. Set the time zone. See below.
4. Set the hours for each day.
5. Add your holidays.
6. Save.

The time zone is the one to get right

It should be where your team works, not where your account happened to be created or where your head office is. Everything measured in business hours shifts if this is wrong, and nothing warns you.

The symptom is subtle: SLAs that breach an hour earlier than expected, and out-of-hours replies going out at the wrong time. Worth checking even on an account that has been running for years.

Do it before the SLAs

An SLA measured in business hours needs a schedule to measure against. Adding the schedule later means your historical figures were calculated differently from your current ones, and comparisons across that date mean nothing.

Be honest about the hours

The schedule should say when you actually answer, not when the office is open. A team that stops taking new work at half past four should not have a schedule saying five, because every promise built on it will be half an hour optimistic.

See also

• Managing holidays
• Using multiple schedules
• What an SLA is and how Zendesk measures it
• Reporting within business hours