How to set up office hours/after hours

Overview

This article will show you how to configure your company office hours and set up rules for how to handle any calls you receive outside of these office hours. 

It contains the following sections:

• Limitations
• Create a new office hours rule
• Set your office hours
• Set your after-hours greeting

• What call group is responsible for after-hours messages?

  • Configure a call group to receive after-hours missed call notifications

  • Configure a call group to receive after-hours calls

  • Configure an external number to receive after-hours calls

Limitations

• You can only have one rule set to 'active' at a time.
• The active rule will only apply to calls made to your main company numbers (any numbers assigned to 'Spoke Attendant/IVR').
• Future updates will allow you to have multiple active rules, assigned to different numbers.

Create a new office hours rule

To get started:

1. Log in to the Spoke Phone account portal online.
2. Navigate to office hours > manage office hours.
3. Click the pencil icon to edit the default office hour rule.
4. Or, to create a new one, click + add office hours.

Set your office hours

1. Enter a name for the office hours rule. 
2. Set the timezone and drag the sliders to set your open hours for each day of the week.
3. Orange is open, grey is closed.

Set your after-hours greeting

1. Scroll down to the field After Hours message.
2. If you have already uploaded/recorded your message, click on the down arrow to display the dropdown options
3. Select the message you want to play when people call through after hours.
4. To upload or record a new message, click the upload arrow (shown in orange in the screenshot below).
5. Whichever message is selected will play instead of your normal messages (company greeting and/or voicemail).

What call group is responsible for after-hours messages?

1. Scroll down to the field what call group is responsible for after-hours messages.
2. Click on the black arrow to show the dropdown options (your call groups). 

Once a call group is selected, the office hours rule will work in the following way:

• When you receive a call after-hours the caller will immediately hear the after-hours message (selected in the previous step). 
• After the message has played, we look at the call group you have selected for this field and check to see how this call group is configured to handle calls that no one has picked up (i.e. send to another call group, send to an external number, or send to group's voicemail). 
• The option you have selected for this field (what happens if no one picks up) in the selected call group, determines how the call is handled. 

See the sections below for specific examples of how this can be configured.

Configure a call group to be responsible for after-hours missed call notifications

To send all after-hours calls immediately to voicemail and ensure none of your users receive calls after-hours, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the Spoke Phone account portal online.
2. Navigate to office hours > manage office hours.
3. Click the pencil icon to edit your active office hour rule.
4. Scroll down to what call group is responsible for after-hours messages.
5. Choose a call group from the dropdown list.
6. Click save. 
7. Now, navigate to call groups > manage call groups.
8. Edit your chosen call group to ensure that the field what happens if no one picks up is set to send to group's voicemail. 

All members of the call group you have chosen will receive notifications of after-hours calls if they are set to busy or available. If they are set to offline when the call is received, they will not receive a notification until they change their status to available or busy. 

We would recommend also setting up voicemail-to-email for that call group so you can receive notifications of after-hours calls to an email inbox. 

Configure a call group to receive after-hours calls

When you receive an after-hours call, the caller will immediately hear your after-hours message. After the message plays, we can send the call to another call group, and offer it to any available members of that call group. To set this up, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the Spoke Phone account portal online.
2. [Optional] Create a new call group for this purpose - if you already have a suitable call group configured, skip to step #3.  
   • Navigate to call groups > add call groups and create a new call group. 
   • Call it something recognizable like 'after-hours'.
   • The purpose of this call group is simply to forward after-hours calls to another call group. You don't need to have any members in this call group. 
   • Scroll down to what happens if no one picks up and select send to another call group.
   • A new field will appear below, click in the field and start typing to select another call group (i.e. Reception). 
   • Any available members of the call group you select here will be offered after-hours calls.
   • Scroll up and save your changes.
3. Now, navigate to office hours > manage office hours.
4. Click the pencil icon to edit your active office hour rule.
5. Scroll down to what call group is responsible for after-hours messages.
6. Choose your call group (i.e. 'After Hours') from the dropdown list.
7. Click save. 

When a call comes in after-hours, the caller will hear the after-hours message you have selected. Once the message has played, Spoke will try to call any available members of the second call group you configured above (i.e. reception). 

Configure an external number to receive after-hours calls

When you receive an after-hours call, the caller will immediately hear your after-hours message. After the message plays, we can forward the call to a pre-configured external number. To set this up, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the Spoke Phone account portal online.
2. [Optional] Create a new call group for this purpose - if you already have a suitable call group configured, skip to step #3.  
   • Navigate to call groups > add call groups and create a new call group. 
   • Call it something recognizable like 'after-hours'.
   • The purpose of this call group is simply to forward after-hours calls to an external number. You don't need to have any members in this call group. 
   • Scroll down to what happens if no one picks up and select send to an external number.
   • A new field will appear below, click in the field and enter a valid phone number.
   • Scroll up and save your changes.
3. Now, navigate to office hours > manage office hours.
4. Click the pencil icon to edit your active office hour rule.
5. Scroll down to what call group is responsible for after-hours messages.
6. Choose your call group (i.e. 'After Hours') from the dropdown list.
7. Click save. 

When a call comes in after-hours, the caller will hear the after-hours message you have selected. Once the message has played, Spoke will forward the call to the external phone number you have configured. 

Note: When forwarding calls to an external number, the phone number of 
the original caller is not passed through. 

Calls will be forwarded with your default company caller ID as the 
incoming caller ID.