Scheduled office hours define when your team is considered in office in Aysali Bot. The weekly timetable drives offline messaging, chat visibility, chatbot availability, welcome/follow-up timing, registration rules, and more.

Configure the schedule under Settings → General → Scheduled office hours. Set Timezone in the same section so hours are evaluated correctly.

What office hours control

Feature	Setting location	Behavior
Offline message	Settings → Messages → Offline message	Sent outside office hours (and optionally when all agents are offline)
Hide chat widget	Settings → Chat → Hide chat outside of office hours	Widget disabled and hidden outside the timetable
Chatbot / AI	Settings → Chatbot → Disable during office hours (dialogflow-timetable)	Chatbot active only outside office hours when enabled
Welcome message	Disable outside of office hours	Welcome message skipped outside hours
Follow-up message	Disable outside of office hours	Follow-up skipped outside hours
Registration	Settings → Users → Disable registration during office hours	Registration form shown only outside office hours
Rich [timetable] shortcode	Offline message / messages	Displays the weekly schedule to visitors

The office_hours flag is exposed to the chat widget (CHAT_SETTINGS.office_hours) so front-end logic can react in real time.

Weekly timetable

Each day has two time ranges (start → end, and start → end). You can use one range per day by filling only the first pair.

1. •

   Open the timetable

   Go to Settings → General → Scheduled office hours.

2. •

   Set each day

   Click a time cell to open the picker. Choose start and end times, or Closed for non-working periods.

3. •

   Set timezone

   Select Timezone below the timetable (offset + IANA zone, for example 3|Asia/Riyadh).

4. •

   Save

   Save settings and test from the chat widget at a time inside and outside your schedule.

Timetable rules

• Single range per day — use the first start/end pair only. Example: 10:00 AM → 5:00 PM, then leave the second pair as Closed → Closed. Do not split one range across both pairs (for example 10:00 AM → empty and empty → 5:00 PM).
• No empty cells — never leave a slot blank. Use Closed instead.
• Whole day off — set all four cells for that day to Closed.

How times are interpreted

• Stored values use 24-hour HH:MM internally (for example 10:00, 17:00).
• Evaluation uses your Timezone setting (timetable-utc: UTC offset and zone name). The timetable hours apply in that timezone, not the visitor’s local time.
• sb_office_hours() compares the current moment against each day’s ranges using that offset.

Display format in the admin UI

Time labels in the picker (12-hour am/pm vs 24-hour) follow the browser language/locale of the admin user. Underlying stored values remain consistent regardless of display format.

Timezone

Settings → General → Timezone (timetable-utc) must match where your business operates.

• If unset on first save, the admin UI may default to the browser’s offset and zone.
• After changing timezone, review the timetable — the same clock times still apply in the newly selected zone.

Chatbot and office hours

When Settings → Chatbot → Disable during office hours is enabled:

• Inside office hours → chatbot/Dialogflow automation is off (agents expected online).
• Outside office hours → chatbot is on (unless human takeover or other rules block it).

This mirrors the classic “bot after hours, humans during the day” setup.

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