In this section, we are going to repeat a couple of things you already know: setting up agents and adding them to a queue. 

The new parts of this section are schedules and calendars.

Agents and queues - recap

First, let's create a new agent. Either you stick with the agent default group _all or you create a new group, it's up to you. If you are not sure how to do that, go back to this tutorial. 

Next, go to the queue section. You can either use the default queue or create a new one. You just need to remember which one you want to use in your call flow. Add the agent selection in the queue of your choice. This tutorial will help you remember in case you have forgotten some of the details.

Business hours and calendars

Now let's look at a central element for every contact center: opening hours. Almost every service wants to define times during which a hotline is reachable and when it isn't.

In babelforce, we offer two different features for handling your office hours: business hours and calendars.

What's the difference?

Quite simple: Business Hours define your daily routine. Here you say at which time your service opens and closes in a standard workweek.

Calendars on the other hand define special opening hours or closed days. Here is the place to define your service's holidays. Also, you can easily control one-time changes in opening hours. Of course, all of this can be done with the normal business hours, however, if you use calendars, you don't need to remember to switch back to the normal opening hours. It's up to you to decide if you want to use a calendar or not.

Setting up Business Hours

Click on Scheduling > Business Hours. 

Either you use the already existing calendar or you create a new one. To create a new one, click on the 'Add' button in the upper right corner of your screen.

Start with adding the name of your setup, define the timezone - it's an important step, so be sure to choose the right one. Finally, set up the opening and closing hours for each day.

Once you're ready, click 'Save'.

If you prefer to follow video instructions, click here:

In the list of available business hours you see the timezone and whether a Business Hour is currently available or not (in the screenshot below, 'Shop DE' has the state "Inactive" while "Business hours agata" are currently "Active").

By clicking on the magnifying glass icon on the right, you can view the defined opening times for each of your Business Hours without opening them in a separate window.

Adding calendars and dates

To create a calendar go to Scheduling > Calendar.

You will find an example calendar that you may edit if you want. Alternatively, you just create a new one by clicking on the 'Add' button in the upper right corner. Start by adding the name for your calendar and defining the timezone, once you're ready click 'Save'.

Remember that you can always change the timezone or other settings of your calendar later on.

The calendar works just like the Business Hours: you need to add specific dates/times when your line is closed. So click on the pencil icon on the right of your newly created calendar.

That brings you to the overview of all dates ever added to this Calendar container. To add a new date, click on "Add" (see screenshot below).

After you've entered the date and time when the holiday starts and ends and you clicked 'Save', you will see the new date added to your list of dates.

If you prefer to follow a video guide, please check the one below:

Now that you set up both business hours and your calendar, you probably wonder 

how to connect Business Hours and Calendar with your call flow?

This is exactly the question we are going to investigate in the upcoming sections. Just setting the times will not have any impact on your call flow. Actually, Business Hours and Calendars are entirely independent so we need to connect them to a specific module. To do that, you have to build a trigger first. This is the topic of sub-section 3.3. And to connect it to your call flow, you will also need a switch but that's the topic in section 3.4.

Before you get there, you will learn how to upload your audio files to the babelforce platform in the next section.