Opening hours and away replies

Set your hours

An owner or administrator opens Settings → Opening hours. Enable away replies, select your IANA time zone, and add time intervals to each day. An empty day is closed; 24 hours keeps it open all day. Add several intervals for lunch breaks. An end time earlier than the start continues into the following day.

Holidays and exceptions

Import a calendar and select the holidays on which your team is closed. The imported dates remain editable. The bundled calendars cover the Netherlands in 2026–2027 and Berlin (DE-BE) in 2026. Other countries, German states and years require manual dates. Review the next year before it begins; dates do not repeat automatically. Public holidays do not necessarily mean your company must close.

Use an exception for a vacation or different opening times. Both dates are inclusive. Empty intervals mean closed. Exceptions take precedence over holidays; holidays take precedence over the weekly schedule. A closed exception also stops an overnight interval from the previous day. Overlapping exceptions are rejected.

The away reply

Write a message in Dutch, English and German and choose a fallback language. {company} inserts your organization name; {nextOpening} inserts the next opening in your time zone. If no opening is found within 370 days, the next-opening variable is empty. Preview shows whether you are currently open and the next opening. Save your changes.

Choose Away reply only, AI only, or Away reply, then AI. AI still requires an eligible agent and available credits. With both enabled, the away reply is saved first. Visitors receive one away reply per conversation during a continuous closure, even when they send several messages. A human reply or takeover prevents queued stale automatic replies. Messages remain visible in the inbox and visitor chat as automatic replies. Hours apply to the entire workspace and all widget domains.

Calendar sources: Netherlands government, Berlin.