Business hours
When you're online and when the widget shows the offline form instead.
The chat widget has two modes — online (live chat) and offline (collect a message + email for follow-up). Business hours control which one shows.
Configuring hours
Settings → Chat → Business hours. First pick a timezone (the one your team operates in). Then for each day mon → sun, set:
- Open / Close times — the window when you're available (e.g. 09:00 – 17:30).
- Closed checkbox — for full days off (typical for sat / sun).
Save. The widget re-evaluates the next time a visitor loads a page.
Online vs offline behavior
When the current time is inside today's open window:
- The widget shows your live-chat panel.
- Welcome message + name/email prompts (if configured) on first open.
- New conversations enter Waiting state, agents pick them up.
When the current time is outside today's window (or the day is marked closed):
- The widget shows your offline message + a short contact form.
- A submission becomes a Waiting conversation in your inbox — same as a live chat, just with no agent online to respond yet.
- The visitor sees a "we'll get back to you" confirmation instead of waiting on the page.
Override switch
Sometimes you need to flip status manually — surprise outage, all-hands meeting, holiday. Settings → Chat → Active is the master switch. Turn it off, the widget is offline regardless of hours.
What we don't do
- Holidays — there's no per-date override yet. Use the master switch on the day.
- Different hours per agent — business hours are workspace-wide. Individual availability isn't tracked.
- Different hours per channel — applies to every widget on every page.