How calls are answered
Business Hours & Holidays: handle calls when you are closed
Set opening times for each day, add bank holidays and closures, and choose what happens to calls when you are closed. Changes apply immediately.
Which plans include it
Included on Plus and above. On Free Trial, Entry you can add it on its own at £2.00 a month from Features & add-ons.
What it means
Your opening hours, as the phone system sees them. In hours, calls follow your normal routing; when closed, they are handled automatically.
What it does
- Shows "Open now" or "Closed now".
- Sets open and close times for each day of the week, or marks a day Closed.
- Chooses what happens when closed: send to voicemail, forward to another number, or play a message and end the call.
- Adds closures and bank holidays (once, or every year).
- Writes the rules straight into the live phone system when you save.
Every part of the page
- Route calls by opening hours
- The master switch.
- Time zone
- Europe/London (UK), Europe/Dublin or UTC. Europe/London handles the clock change for you.
- Weekly hours
- Open and close times per day, or Closed.
- When closed
- Send to voicemail, Forward to another number, or Play a message and end the call.
- Closures & bank holidays
- Name, Date and "Every year". UK bank holidays (New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Early May, Spring, Summer, Christmas Day, Boxing Day) can be added; also your own, e.g. "Staff training day".
- Save opening hours
- "Saved — your dialplan has been updated" means it is live.
How to use it
Set Monday–Friday 9 to 5:30
- Switch on "Route calls by opening hours".
- Time zone: Europe/London.
- Set Mon–Fri 09:00–17:30; mark Sat and Sun Closed.
- When closed: Send to voicemail.
- Save opening hours.
Add the Christmas closure
- Under Closures, add "Christmas Day", 25 December, tick Every year.
- Repeat for Boxing Day. Press Add for each.
Examples
Normal office
Monday to Friday 9:00–17:30, Saturday and Sunday closed. When closed: send calls to voicemail, or to your "Closed" greeting menu.
Bank holidays
Add 25 and 26 December and the UK bank holidays as closures. On those days callers get your closed message automatically — nobody has to remember to switch anything.
Late opening one day
Thursday 9:00–20:00, other weekdays 9:00–17:00. Each day has its own times.
Recommended settings
- ★Time zone Europe/London for UK businesses — never UTC, or your hours move by an hour in summer.
- ★When closed: Send to voicemail, with an out-of-hours greeting that says when you reopen.
- ★Add all UK bank holidays with "Every year" ticked on day one.
Abbreviations on this page
- UTC — Coordinated Universal Time
- World standard time. The UK is on UTC in winter and UTC+1 (BST) in summer — choose Europe/London and the change happens for you.
- Example: In July, 14:00 UTC is 15:00 UK time; pick Europe/London as your time zone and you never need to work it out.
- BST — British Summer Time
- UK clock time from late March to late October, one hour ahead of UTC.
- Example: From late March to late October UK time is BST, one hour ahead of UTC.
- Dialplan
- The phone system's instructions for what happens to each call. Your dashboard writes it for you — you never edit it by hand.
- Example: The dialplan decides that a call to your number plays the greeting menu first.
Questions
Do changes take effect straight away?+
Yes — saving updates the live phone system immediately.
How is this different from Holiday mode?+
Business Hours is your regular weekly pattern plus planned closures. Holiday mode (on the Do Not Disturb page) is one switch that overrides everything until you turn it off.
Which plans include it?+
Plus and above. On Entry it can be added on its own as Business-hours routing.
Related help
Already a customer? Open this page in your dashboard: Business Hours. New to Silux Call? See the plans or start a free trial.