> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.aide.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Business hours and holidays

> Business hours tell Aide when your team is around.

Business hours tell Aide when your team is around. They're used by SLAs, routing rules, handoff messages, notifications and Aide Chat's outside-hours behaviour. Set them in Settings > Helpdesk > Business hours.

## Schedules

A schedule has a name, a time zone and, for each weekday, opening and closing times or Closed. One schedule is the default: teams, SLAs and rules without their own schedule use it. You can create more schedules, for example for a team in another country, and pick them where a schedule is asked for (an SLA policy, or Aide Chat > Behaviour). Each schedule shows what uses it.

## Holidays

Add the days you're closed, up to 200 per schedule. To save typing, import the public holidays for a year: enter a country code (US, GB, CA, FR, DE, AU, IE, NL or ES) and click **Import**, then remove the days you work on.

## What customers are told

Each schedule has a **Reply-time message inside hours** ("We usually reply within an hour.") and a **Reply-time message outside hours**. Handoff messages use your hours through the `{{reply_time}}` variable: outside hours it becomes your next opening time, so a customer writing at night knows when to expect an answer.


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