Set up business hours

You set your hours once, on one page. From then on, whenever a customer messages you, Exabloom checks whether you’re open right now. If you’re closed and the away message is on, it replies for you.

The same hours are used in a few other places too, so they’re worth getting right even if you never use the away message:

• Win-back only sends inside your open hours, and never before 8 AM or after 9 PM, whatever your hours say.
• Analytics measures reply times against your hours. A message at 10:30 PM answered at 9:12 AM counts as a 12-minute wait, not an 11-hour one.
• Workflows can check whether you’re open and do something different when you’re closed (advanced, below).

Most businesses need very little of this. Set your hours, switch on the away message, and you’re done. Everything after that is optional.

Everything lives on one Settings page. You need to be an admin, or have a role that includes Availability, to see it.

The page is four cards, top to bottom: Business Hours, Auto Away Message, Special Dates and Workflow Integration. The first two are the whole basic setup.

Every new workspace starts at 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, every day. Change it to your real hours.

• Closed days: switch the day off and it reads Closed.
• Lunch breaks and split shifts: add a second slot with the +, like Friday above. The × beside a slot removes it.
• Past midnight: pick an end time earlier than the start, and a +1 day tag appears. Friday’s 7:00 PM to 1:00 AM keeps you open until 1 AM on Saturday.
• Until midnight: choose 12:00 AM as the end time. It counts as the end of the day, so there’s no +1 day tag.

The Auto Away Message is off until you switch it on. Scroll down to the second card.

From then on, when someone messages while you’re closed, they get your reply on the same channel they wrote from. For most businesses, that’s the whole job.

• Once every 8 hours, per customer. Five messages at midnight get one reply, not five.
• Only as a reply. It goes out when a customer messages you, never on its own.
• Left the box empty? Customers get “We are currently closed. We will get back to you soon.” Write your own so it sounds like you.

Don’t interrupt live chats

Say your AI agent is mid-conversation with someone at 9 PM. A blunt “we’re closed” landing in the middle of it would be confusing. Under Suppress Away Message, pick the workflows that are already looking after the customer.

While a customer is active in one of those workflows, they don’t get the away message. That includes a workflow their own message just started. Once they leave it, the away message works as normal again. Being in any other workflow makes no difference.

Closing for a public holiday, or opening short hours on Christmas Eve? Add a special date instead of changing your weekly hours. On that date it replaces them completely.

• Add as many as you like. Set up the whole year’s holidays in one go; each one takes effect on its own date.
• Past dates stay on the list. They do nothing once they’re over. Delete them whenever you want a tidy list.

Every time a message arrives, Exabloom works out your status from scratch, in your workspace’s timezone. Special dates always win over weekly hours.

Skip this unless one away message isn’t enough. Workflows can check whether you’re open, so they can send a different reply, pass a message to someone on call, or skip a follow-up that would land out of hours.

The last card on the Availability page lists what workflows can check.

Use them in a trigger filter, so a workflow only starts while you’re open, or in an If else step to split the path. Here’s an If else that sends an after-hours reply when you’re closed and hands everything else to a person. It takes three short steps to get there.

Four common setups, built from the pieces above.

• Hours alone send nothing. The away reply only goes out once Auto Away Message is switched on and saved.
• Two cards, two Saves. Business Hours and Auto Away Message each have their own Save; special dates save from their own box. Leaving the page drops anything unsaved.
• Press Save on your hours at least once. In some older workspaces the hours you see were never actually stored, and the away message then treats you as closed all day. Saving them, even unchanged, fixes it.
• Expect one reply per 8 hours per customer, not one per message.
• The away message isn’t an answer. Your team still needs to reply, and the customer’s question still shows up for them in the morning.
• Workflows need Auto Away on to see you as closed, and a Wait for time delay never pauses for your hours.