Setting your working hours

There are two different sorts of hours, and it is worth being clear which you are setting.

Your website’s opening hours

Settings → Websites → your site. One open and close window per weekday, in the timezone you choose.

These are what your customers see. Inside them the widget says you are online; outside them it says when you will be back and takes an email address instead, so a question at nine in the evening still reaches you. What your customers see outside your hours shows both.

Set these even if you are always about. Without them the widget claims you are online at three in the morning, and somebody will find out that you are not.

Your own working hours

Settings → Availability. A personal rota that moves you between available and away at the edges of your shifts, so you are not doing it by hand twice a day and forgetting on Fridays.

This does not change what customers see. It changes whether chats are offered to you. See Available, Away and Do not disturb for what each state does.

Changing your status by hand always wins

If you set yourself away at half past nine, that sticks, even though your rota says you are working. The schedule takes over again at the next shift boundary.

That is the right way round: the rota is a default, not a supervisor. You know when you have stepped out and it does not.

Which one is causing the problem

If customers say chat was unavailable, look at the website’s opening hours.

If you are not being offered chats while colleagues are, look at your own availability and your rota. Why you stopped getting chats works through it.

Last updated 22 September 2026.