By default, the Virtual Receptionist will perform the same actions all day, every day. You can create a custom schedule that will play an “After Hours” menu whenever your business is closed. Custom schedules allow you to identify your standard operating hours and create special schedules for dates with modified hours or where your business is closed all together. You have the ability to make your Virtual Receptionists as efficient as possible.

Setting business hours

You can set your business operating hours by following these instructions:

  1. Log in to office.ooma.com as an administrator and navigate to the Settings page.
  2. Locate the Virtual Receptionist whose key press assignments you wish to update and click the corresponding line.
  3. Click the “Schedule” tab.
  4. Choose a schedule from the Business Hours dropdown menu or create a new schedule (see instructions below).
  5. Choose a schedule from the Holiday Hours dropdown menu or create a new schedule (see instructions below).
  6. Save your changes.

Creating a Business Schedule

  1. Follow the instructions in the previous section to access your Virtual Receptionist’s Custom Schedule.
  2. Select “+ Add New Business Schedule” from the Business Hours dropdown.
  3. Name the schedule, then select a day of the week and click and drag your mouse down to cover the range of your business’s hours of operation. Select multiple ranges in a single day if your business shuts down for part of the day.
  4. Fine-tune your selection by clicking an existing time range. You can expand your business hours to include multiple days of the week, and you can fine-tune your opening and closing times in 15-minute intervals.
  5. Delete a time range by clicking the X at the top.
  6. Save your changes.

The Business Hours menu will be played during time blocks when the business is marked as open according to the Virtual Receptionist’s time zone. The Holiday menu will play at all other times.

Adding Holidays

You can identify holidays when your business will be closed all day. The Virtual Receptionist will play the After Hours menu for incoming callers all day on holidays. To set up a new Holiday Schedule, follow these steps:

  1. Follow the instructions in the previous section to access your Virtual Receptionist’s Custom Schedule.
  2. Choose “+Add New Holiday Schedule” from the Holiday Hours dropdown.
  3. Name your new schedule.
  4. Click the + button to add a new holiday. A new row will be added to the Holiday table.
  5. Name the holiday and define its date.
  6. Click trash beside a holiday to delete it.
  7. Save your changes to finalize your schedule.