Time Groups provides the ability to define business operating patterns which allows calls to be routed through to appropriate teams during specified hours. This ensures operational coverage is achieved across multiple teams or that calls are routed to a specific teams to cover a special event. Calls can also be routed directly to voicemail during after hours on weekends or weekdays to ensure the customer call is not lost. Having the ability to automatically route calls means that customer calls will always be routed to the most available area of the business.
Multiple Time Groups can be defined to cover Business Hours, After Hours and when required, can also define Special Event Hours.
Each Time Group can also have multiple Time Blocks that are used to capture specific times and days that match operational times represented by the group.
Each line of the Time Group can represent any combination of day and block of time where times must be entered in 24-hour format.
For example, separate time blocks could define the following for the Business Hours group;
- weekday hours
- Mon 10:00 to 15:00 "Half Day Monday"
- Tue-Fri 09:00 to 18:00 "Main Hours"
- weekend hours
- Sat 10:00 to 14:00 "Saturday Shop"
This Time Groups can then be applied to a Route Set for a Call Routing Profile.
- Login to the Call Control Portal.
- Select Call Routing Profiles from the left-hand menu.
- Go to the Time Groups tab.
- Select Add Time Group.
- Hover over the New Time Group item from the list and select Edit.
- Enter a relevant name for the Time Group e.g. "Business Hours"
- Select Add Line and enter a name for the Time Block e.g. "Main Hours"
- Enter start and end times and select the relevant day options.
Note: times should be entered in 24 hour format e.g. 09:00 for 9am and 21:00 for 9pm - Select Add Line and enter a name for additional Time Blocks e.g. "Half Day Monday, Saturday Shop"
- Once all Time Blocks have been added select Save to save changes to the Time Groups.
- Go to the Time Groups tab to see the list of available Time Groups.
Note: Create multiple Time Groups as required to align with business operating patterns before linking to a Call Routing Profile (see How to setup Time of Day Call Routing for more details).