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Your agent answers whenever a call arrives. There is no setting that makes it answer only outside your opening hours, because a number attached to an agent is answered around the clock. What you can put on a schedule is what happens next: when your agent may transfer a caller to a person, when callbacks go out, and when campaign calls go out.

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What you can and cannot schedule

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Three ways to get after hours behaviour

1. Let it answer, and tell it your hours. The simplest approach, and the one most businesses want. Your agent answers at 10pm, says the office is closed, takes a message, and only transfers if the call is urgent. Put your hours in its knowledge and the behaviour in its instructions. See Set up after hours cover. 2. Forward to Brilo only outside your hours. If you want your own team to answer during the day, do the switching at your phone provider rather than in Brilo: forward your business number to your Brilo number outside your opening hours, or only when nobody picks up after a few rings. Most providers support both. See Use your existing number. 3. Restrict when transfers are allowed. Set availability hours on your transfer action so your agent does not ring a colleague’s mobile at midnight. Outside those hours it uses the fallback you set, or takes a message instead. See Pass the call to a person. Most businesses end up combining one and three: the agent answers everything, and transfers only happen when somebody is there to take them.

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Setting the hours your agent talks about

Your agent only knows your opening hours if you tell it. Put them in two places, because they do two different jobs:
  • In knowledge, as a plain list of days and times, so it can answer “are you open on Saturday?” See Add a document or website.
  • In your instructions, as behaviour: what to say and do when a call arrives outside those hours. See Write what your agent says.
Include your holidays. Your agent has no calendar of public holidays and will treat an unlisted one as a normal day.

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Time zones

Availability hours carry their own time zone, and for callbacks and campaigns the schedule is evaluated in the contact’s local time rather than yours. That is deliberate, so a list spread across regions is not called at breakfast, and it is the usual explanation when calls go out at a time you did not expect. Scheduled callbacks also sit under a hard floor of 9am to 8pm in the contact’s local time, which is stricter than the law requires and cannot be switched off. See Calling rules you should know.

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FAQ

No. A number attached to an agent is answered whenever it rings. To have your team answer during the day, forward your business number to Brilo only outside your hours at your phone provider, which is where that switch belongs.
Set availability hours on the transfer action, and set a fallback for calls outside them. Your agent still answers the call, it just takes a message instead of ringing somebody at 2am. See Pass the call to a person.
Put the hours in its knowledge so it can answer questions about them, and put the behaviour in its instructions so it knows what to do out of hours. Doing only one of the two is the usual reason an agent quotes your hours correctly but behaves as though you are open.
Whatever you have told it. Your agent has no list of public holidays, so an unlisted holiday is treated as a normal working day. Add your closures to knowledge at the start of the year.
Yes, and it is one of the better arrangements. Set your phone provider to forward on no answer after a few rings, so your team gets first refusal and nothing is ever missed. See Use your existing number.
The contact’s local time, not yours. That prevents a national list being called at breakfast in one region, and it is the first thing to check when calls go out at an unexpected hour. See Choose when calls go out.
They already are stopped. Scheduled callbacks are held to 9am to 8pm in the contact’s local time, on top of any availability hours you set, and that floor cannot be disabled.