Configure working hours, SLA calendars and assignment availability correctly

Updated Wednesday, October 28, 2026 · Marcel Gravelle

Working hours describe coverage, but Supportbench uses several different availability decisions. The calendar used to count a case’s SLA is not automatically the same as an agent’s eligibility for assignment, a chat availability status or a workflow condition. Configure the decision you need, then verify it on the actual case path. This keeps a multi-team B2B operation from promising coverage that no one owns or incorrectly pausing a customer commitment because one person is away.

At a glance

For: support operations administrators, supervisors and queue owners. Applies to: Supportbench Core.

Start here: Settings → Organization → Teams, Queues or Agents; Settings → Calendar → Holiday schedules

Choose which availability decision you are configuring · Agree the real coverage plan · Set a team’s SLA availability · Configure queue hours and assignment separately · Use agent hours and absence for the intended purpose · Create holiday exceptions that actually affect the timer · Treat workflow availability conditions as a separate tested rule · Example: regional coverage with a specialist queue · Use a coverage acceptance checklist · Correct the configuration that owns the result

Choose which availability decision you are configuring

Decision	Configuration to review	What it does not establish
When SLA minutes count	SLA clock and the case’s effective queue/owner calendar.	That every routing or chat action stops outside those hours.
Team coverage schedule	Team SLA Availability, time zone, working days/hours and off-day hours.	That a queued case automatically uses the owner’s team hours.
Queue coverage schedule	Queue Availability and the applicable parent queue path.	That agents receive no assignments outside those hours.
Automatic assignment eligibility	Queue assignment configuration and its Availability rule.	That SLA timing pauses when an agent is absent.
Individual absence or calendar availability	Agent/profile/calendar and out-of-office settings.	That a whole customer service commitment becomes unavailable.
Workflow condition	The particular event and User Availability, Team Availability or Queue Availability condition.	A universal availability gate across every workflow execution path.

Write the desired result before changing settings. “Pause this Business Hours SLA on the regional holiday,” “avoid assigning work to an unavailable agent,” and “show customers that chat is offline” are three different requirements. A single working-hours edit does not prove all three were achieved.

Agree the real coverage plan

List the queues that receive the work, their owner/team relationships and any parent queues or teams. Record which path the actual case will use.
Choose the named time zone in which the team works. Consider daylight-saving changes and customers in other regions; a fixed offset is not always equivalent to that time zone.
Record normal working days and start/end times, plus any supported off-day coverage. Distinguish an on-call arrangement from a fully staffed support window.
Identify the holiday schedule and who maintains dates and category behavior. Agree how cases are handled while the service clock is paused.
Keep ownership and after-hours communication explicit. A paused timer does not inform the customer, answer an urgent message or assign an on-call person.
Use the appropriate team, queue, agent or calendar administration permissions. Prepare approved test records for the actual routing and clock paths.

Set a team’s SLA availability

Open Settings → Organization → Teams and select the intended team.
Find SLA Availability. Review Timezone and choose the team’s intended named zone.
Review Holiday schedule and the displayed resolved/inherited information. Choose a specific schedule only when it is the correct service coverage exception.
Set Working days and Working hours. Review both start and end; do not infer that selecting weekdays supplies a complete time range.
If the team has defined coverage on days outside the ordinary selection, review Enable off-day hours and its Off-day hours. Leave the choice aligned with actual staffing.
Save, reopen and verify the values. Then test a representative case that actually resolves through this team’s calendar. A queued case may use a different calendar path.

If you change team hierarchy, review the separate hierarchy consequences in the team configuration guide. Re-parenting a team can affect its direct children; do not restructure teams merely to experiment with inherited hours.

Configure queue hours and assignment separately

Open Settings → Organization → Queues and select the queue that will hold the case.
Review its Availability schedule, time zone, working days/hours and applicable parent queue. Record the intended effective coverage.
Review automatic-assignment controls independently. Where shown, Availability rule offers Just working hours, Availability or Availability and working hours. Choose the decision the queue should make for eligible agents.
Check the configured assignment candidates and other assignment rules. An agent’s visible Away state and their calendar/out-of-office availability are not interchangeable evidence.
Save and test both the case’s SLA deadline and assignment result. Use a matching available agent and an unavailable example where permitted.
Repeat outside ordinary hours and confirm the handoff/monitoring process. An outside-hours message still needs an operational owner even if a business-hours timer is not currently counting.

A queue calendar gap has a specific consequence

When a case has a queue, SLA calendar resolution follows that queue and its parents. If no usable hours are found there, it does not fall through to the owner’s primary team. An empty Business Hours result can normalize to 24/7. Configure and test the queue path rather than assuming that a fully configured team makes it safe.

Use agent hours and absence for the intended purpose

Open Settings → Organization → Agents for authorized administration of agent profiles and availability. Review the agent’s working schedule, time zone, team membership and applicable absence/calendar settings through the configuration guide. For a no-queue case, the owner’s primary-team chain normally takes precedence; the profile schedule is the fallback for an owner without a team.

An absence is a staffing fact. It should lead to a deliberate assignment or handoff process; it is not a reason to assume every customer’s SLA pauses. Before leave, review open ownership, upcoming commitments, scheduled messages and who will respond. After changing absence or working hours, test the relevant assignment workflow rather than relying only on the saved profile.

Create holiday exceptions that actually affect the timer

Open Settings → Calendar → Holiday schedules with the appropriate calendar administration access.
Create or open the intended schedule and save its identity before using Add Date to maintain dates. Saving a schedule name does not create its holiday events.
Review each event’s date/time and category. Only categories with Stop SLA timers provide the relevant pause behavior; a label such as “Holiday” is not sufficient on its own.
Associate the intended schedule with the team or review Use as default holiday schedule deliberately. Schedule/date administration and default/team assignment have separate permission requirements.
Check inherited resolution: a team can use the nearest applicable parent-team mapping, then an active global default. Existing fallback calendar behavior can also apply when no mapping resolves, so an empty schedule selector does not prove that no holiday affects the case.
Save and test a representative Business Hours target crossing the date. Confirm the effective calendar, event category and observed deadline before relying on the exception for customer commitments.

Keep the regional meaning explicit. A holiday for one support team need not mean another region is closed. Review the next year’s dates and ownership before the current schedule expires; do not assume recurring holiday dates were created merely because the schedule exists.

Treat workflow availability conditions as a separate tested rule

In Settings → Configuration → Workflows, select the actual event and then inspect the available User Availability, Team Availability or Queue Availability condition. The displayed choices include During working hours and Outside working hours, but current event paths retain compatibility behavior that does not support a blanket claim that every label is a universal routing gate.

Verify the exact event before relying on an availability condition

The current Queue Availability comparison can behave opposite to the expected working-hours interpretation, and scheduled Team Availability evaluation does not perform a complete team-hours test. Do not use these conditions as the sole basis for an untested after-hours promise. Have the workflow owner verify matching and nonmatching cases on the intended event, and agree a monitored operating process for any discrepancy.

A reliable test records the event, current queue/owner/team, schedule time zone, chosen condition and resulting action. Test both inside and outside coverage. If the observed behavior differs, preserve the evidence for Supportbench and avoid broad activation. Changing the wording of an article or the saved hours cannot correct an underlying event-path behavior.

Example: regional coverage with a specialist queue

The case’s queue determines which schedule must be checked

A manufacturer supports equipment through a regional team and a specialist queue. The team works weekdays, but the specialist queue was created without hours. An operations lead expects a Friday Business Hours deadline to continue on Monday. The first check is the specialist queue and its parents, not merely the assigned agent’s team. Complete the queue coverage configuration, test a representative deadline and separately verify who receives work outside the staffed period.

If another region handles urgent requests, document the actual transfer and owner acceptance. Do not assume that different time zones automatically create follow-the-sun coverage. Confirm the destination queue, customer communication and resulting deadline after the handoff.

Use a coverage acceptance checklist

Test	Evidence to record
Ordinary weekday during coverage	Effective queue/team path, schedule zone, target clock, due time and assignment result.
Just after closing	Whether SLA minutes continue or pause and who monitors arriving cases.
Weekend/off-day	Actual off-day interval and intended assignment eligibility.
Holiday boundary	Resolved holiday schedule, Stop SLA timers category and observed deadline.
Daylight-saving transition	Named schedule zone and displayed due time, with any customer-time conversion checked.
Owner has a team, but case has a queue	Verify the queue path wins and whether its parent supplies hours.
Agent becomes unavailable	Verify assignment/handoff separately from the customer SLA.
Workflow inside/outside hours	Run both examples for the exact event; do not infer another event behaves identically.

Correct the configuration that owns the result

Symptom	Next check
Business Hours is counting continuously	Inspect the actual queue/parent path and whether it supplied usable intervals.
Team hours look right but the case deadline is wrong	Check whether the case has a queue and therefore uses a different path.
An unavailable agent still owns a case	Existing ownership, assignment eligibility and absence are separate. Review the explicit handoff/assignment mechanism.
Cases still arrive or route after hours	Working hours do not globally suppress intake or every workflow. Inspect the specific routing and assignment rule.
Holiday event has no effect	Check effective schedule resolution, event category and Stop SLA timers.
An unexpected holiday affects a case	Review inherited/default schedule and retained fallback calendar behavior.
Queue workflow condition behaves unexpectedly	Test the exact event and inside/outside comparison; current compatibility behavior needs verification before reliance.
Times differ between people	Compare the named schedule zone, viewer display and daylight-saving date before changing the hours.

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