Business hours and scheduling

What it is

Channel business hours define when a messaging account is open. Appointment schedules define when visitors can book an operator or team. These are separate settings, and appointment availability can also exclude dated periods.

Who uses it and why

Powerfront enables website scheduling and configures channel hours. Users with the Settings or Scheduling role maintain booking themes, team appointment capacity and unavailable dates. Operators with the Scheduling role maintain their own work availability.

Where to find it

With the Scheduling role, use Settings › Account › Appointment Schedule for your availability. Users with Settings or Manager access to Operators can use the Appointment tab when editing an operator. The Settings or Scheduling role grants access to Scheduling, subject to delegated screen permissions. It contains General Settings, Form Customizations, Email Customizations, Reminder Templates and Team Settings.

Powerfront manages messaging hours in the relevant account under Settings › General Settings › Integrations and SMS account hours under Settings › Text/SMS › Text/SMS Phone Numbers. Powerfront also manages Settings › Text/SMS › General Settings (Legacy) for older configurations. Ask Powerfront to change these settings for you.

How it works

For channel hours, ask Powerfront to select the open weekdays and enter From and To. Where offered, ask Powerfront to configure Offline Message (Business Hours) and Offline Message (Non-Business Hours) separately. SMS accounts can use account-specific business hours.

For appointments, choose Timezone, use Add Time Slot to add weekly availability and set Duration and Buffer Time. A work-hour row can apply to a weekday, Weekdays or Weekends, with optional From Date and To Date bounds. Multiple rows are supported.

Use Unavailable Schedule for dated periods without appointments. Operator, team and general scheduling screens each offer these periods. General unavailable periods apply across operators and teams.

Visitors book against the resulting availability through the scheduling experience. Booking themes control the form and state messages; confirmation and reminder templates control the accompanying emails.

Configure it

1. Ask Powerfront to turn on Enable Scheduling in Settings › General Settings › Admin and configure the scheduling service connection. Have a user with the Settings role and Operators permission give the required operators Scheduling access.
2. Set operator availability, appointment duration, buffer and timezone, then choose Save.
3. For teams, enable scheduling on the team and review Settings › Scheduling › Team Settings.
4. Add unavailable periods with Description, Start Date and End Date at the appropriate scope.
5. Configure Form Customizations, Email Customizations and Reminder Templates as needed.

Available Appointments Per Timeslot offers Default, based on available team operators, or a limit of 1 to 10 appointments. Team scheduling also has its own duration and buffer.

Booking themes can be copied, deleted and selected as the default. They support translated labels, opt-in choices, custom text, up to two custom fields and background images for appointment states. Custom fields can be Text or Dropdown. Reminder timing ranges from 30 minutes to 3 days before the appointment.

Settings

Fields

Permissions

Limits and good to know

The shared messaging-hours check uses the website timezone. It requires selected days and both times; missing values do not count as open. It compares one interval on the same local date, so a closing time earlier than the opening time does not create an overnight interval. Voice opening hours have separate settings.

Work-hour date bounds must be supplied together and cannot end before they start. Unavailable periods require paired dates, a description and an end date on or after the start. Duplicate periods are rejected. The operator editor also rejects overlapping unavailable periods, including periods that share a start or end date.

The booking editor validates image overlay opacity between 0 and 1. Field help recommends 0.4 to 1 and states 0.7 as the default.

Channel hours do not automatically set appointment availability. Review each schedule's timezone and scope when diagnosing missing slots.

Depends on and works with

FAQ and troubleshooting

Why are no appointment slots available?

Check scheduling enablement, operator or team access, work-hour rows, timezone, duration, buffer and unavailable periods at all applicable scopes.

Why are late-night channel hours treated as closed?

The shared messaging-hours check does not interpret an earlier closing time as the next day. Review the hours with Powerfront support for an overnight setup.

Why will my unavailable dates not save?

Supply both dates and a description. Remove duplicates; for operators, also remove overlaps and periods that share a start or end date.

Why can a team offer several bookings at once?

Default capacity uses available team operators. Set Available Appointments Per Timeslot if the team needs a lower limit.

Where do I change appointment emails?

Use Email Customizations for brand and confirmation content, and Reminder Templates for reminder timing and messages.

Does changing messaging business hours change appointment hours?

No. Maintain Appointment Schedule and team availability separately.