Hours of Operation allow account and organization admins to specify the timeframe within which messages can be sent by agents and delivered to recipients. Hours of Operation will prevent messages from being sent or delivered outside of the timeframe specified in the settings of an account or organization.
Skip to:
- What are hours of operation and how do they work?
- How do I set up hours of operation?
- What time zone is used for hours of operation?
- How do hours of operation work for agents outside of sending hours?
- How do I set up an automated away message for messages received outside of hours of operation?
- What happens if an agent is in a conversation outside of hours of operation?
- What happens if a contact calls an agent outside of hours of operation?
What are hours of operation and how do they work?
An organization's hours of operation are the timeframe during which messages can be sent and delivered using Hustle. All accounts, organizations, inboxes, and groups have hours of operation on by default, and the default timeframe for all timezones is 8am - 8pm. Account and organization admins (if permissions allow) can edit the hours of operation.
If account admins do not want organizations to be able to set their own hours of operation, admins can disable this in Account Overview > Account Settings > Hours of Operation.
This feature prevents messages from being sent or delivered outside of those hours of operation.
For example, if you launch a broadcast at 7:30pm and your hours of operation close at 8pm, any messages that are not sent before hours of operation close will be put on hold and sent the following day when hours of operation resume.
Please Note ✨: While Hustle can control when we deliver a message, at that point we hand it off to phone carriers. In most cases, messages are delivered by the carrier immediately, but there are a number of reasons there could be carrier-specific delays that are outside of Hustle's control, for example:
• If a contact's phone were powered off at the time of delivery, or in an area of poor service
• If the carriers experienced delays due to network congestion
• Timezone differences
How do I set up hours of operation?
To set up Hours of Operation for your Account:
- Account admins can navigate to the Account Overview, click Account Settings.
- Click the Hours of Operation tab.
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Adjust the settings based on your preference for the following:
- Allow Inbox messages to be sent outside of these hours
- Allow Automation messages to be sent outside of these hours
- Allow Organizations to set their own Hours of Operation
- Enter the Start time and End time for Hours of Operation > Save.
To set up Hours of Operation for your Organization:
- From the Admin Panel, click Settings.
- Click the Hours of Operation tab.
- Check the box Check and save to enable hours of operation for this organization.
- Enter the Start time and End time for Hours of Operation > Save.
• Hours of Operation applies to all groups within your organization; admins can't enable Hours of Operation for specific groups.
• Enabling or disabling Hours of Operation will immediately apply to every active goal in the org. This could prevent some groups from sending messages to groups of contacts that span multiple time zones if those contacts end up outside the specified end time. To disable Hours of Operation, we recommend setting them to 12AM - 12AM.
What time zone is used for hours of operation?
For P2P goals, Hours of Operation will work in conjunction with the time zone based on the group's location.
For Broadcast goals, admins can determine if they want Hours of Operations to follow the Inbox time zone or the contact-specific time zone.
During a CSV import admins can map data to the postal code field and view a contact's postal code from the Organization Contacts.
When a contact has a specified postal code, the contact-specific time zone will work in conjunction with the Hours of Operation so that messages begin sending based on that contact's time zone rather than the time zone set for the inbox.
Postal codes will also work in conjunction with Broadcast goal start times so that messages will begin sending at the goal start time for each contacts' time zone rather than the time zone set for the Inbox.
Contacts with a known postal code will have their hours of operations and Broadcast goal start times enforced based on their local time zone.
In the Broadcast goal form, admins can toggle the Use Contact's Local Time Zones option depending on which time zone they would like messages to be sent. With this setting turned on, the local time zones for contacts with a known postal code will override the Inbox time zone. When this setting is turned off, the goal will default to the Inbox time zone.
Example: If the goal start time is 8am, messages to contacts on Eastern Time will begin sending at 8am ET. Messages to contacts on Pacific Time will begin sending at 8am PT. If the contact's time zone is unknown, the goal will default to the Inbox time zone.
On the Organization Contacts page, admins can view the postal code and time zone for contacts. The time zone will show for contacts with a known postal code.
How do hours of operations work for agents outside of sending hours?
When Hours of Operation are enabled, agents can't send messages to contacts until the Hours of Operation re-open. Agents can still receive messages but won't receive notifications or incoming calls, or have the ability to respond to messages when this feature is enabled and it is outside of hours.
Workflow tab
On the Workflows tab outside Hours of Operation, workflows are closed and will be available when Hours of Operation re-open, which is displayed for each upcoming goal.
Workflow on the mobile app outside of Hours of Operation.
For more information on how to use the Hustle web and mobile app, see:
An agent can continue to view conversations, apply tags, opt-outs and other actions on the contacts page, but will be prevented from sending messages. An alert at the top of conversations wull let agents know when they can resume texting.
What happens if an agent is in a conversation outside of hours of operation?
If an agent tries to send a message outside the Hours of Operation, the keyboard and send button won't be available. Additionally, the message area will be inactive.
How do I set up an automated away message for messages received outside of hours of operation?
Admins can request to set up an automatic away message for any messages received outside of your organization's hours of operation.
If you'd like to set this up, admins can email support@hustle.com with the inbox URL and their desired away message. The URL will look like this: https://admin.hustle.com/a/##########/o/##########/inbox/########################
A few things to note:
- These messages do not currently support variables or media.
- If a contact enters an Automation outside of hours of operation, they will not receive an away message until they exit the Automation.
- For example, if a contact texts in the keyword INFO and enters that Keyword automation with a Send Message action, they would receive that automation's message. They will receive the away message if they send another text responding to the automation's message.
- Contacts will only receive one away message within a 24-hour period.
What happens if a contact calls an agent outside of hours of operation?
The contact will receive a pre-recorded voice message letting them know the agent is unavailable and to try again at a later time.