For instance, your organization is located in the US and the business hours is 9 am to 5 pm in the US timezone. If your company extends its services in other countries like Europe, Japan or India, you can create shift hours for these particular timezones. Similarly, if the employees in your organization work at different timings (afternoon shift, morning shift), you can create shifts for their work timings. Additionally, you can also create holiday lists for different locations and associate it to shifts.

Set Business Hours

Depending on the working hours of your organization, you can:

1. Choose either 24/7 or 24/5 as the business hours.
   
2. If your organization follows different timings on each day or functions on weekends, you can customize the business hours to suit your requirement.

To set business hours

1. Go to  Setup > General > Company Settings > Business hours.
2. In the Business Hours page, click Create Business Hour.
   
3. Select a Business Hour from the following list. 

1. 24 Hours x 7 Days  - Select this option if your company operates 24/7. Select the starting day.
2. 24 Hours x 5 Days  - Select this option if your company operates 24/5. You can choose the starting day and select the business days.
3. Custom hours - Select this option if you want to customize the business days or hours.
   
   • Same hours every day -  Select this option if the business hours of the organization is same everyday. Choose the start and end timings. Select the business days.
   • Different hours every day - Select this option if the business hours of the organization varies each day. Select the business days and choose the start and end timings for each business day.
     

4. Click  Save.
   

Create and Assign Shifts to Users

You can create shifts for users who work in different timezones or timings. For instance, if a user works for clients based in the USA, you can create a shift for the US timezone and assign it to the user. Also, depending on the business needs, you can transfer an user from one shift to another. While transferring, you can choose to transfer the user immediately or at a later date. If a transfer is scheduled for a later date, you are allowed to select any date up to 6 months from the present date.

A)  To create shifts

1. Go to  Setup > Company Settings > Business Hours.
   
2. Click + New Shift Hours .
   
3. In the Create Shift Hours  page, enter the Shift name .
   
4. Select the timezone from the drop-down list.
5. In Shift hours,
   
   a)  Same Hours Everyday  - Select this option if the shift hour is same everyday and choose the start and end timings.
   
   b)  Different Hours Everyday  - Select this option if the shift hour varies each day and choose the start and end timings for each day.
   
6. Set break hours if needed. This is optional and you set up to two break hours. You can set the break hours for:
   
1. Same Hours Everyday  - Select this option if the break hour is same everyday and choose the start and end timings.
   
2. Different Hours Everyday  - Select this option if the break hour varies each day and choose the start and end timings for each day.
   

B)  To assign shift

1. Under the Assign users section, click + Add user.
2. Select the users and click Assign.
   
3. Click Save.

Add Break Hours

You can include the break hours for every shift, that will help know the users unavailability during a particular shift. It will help you plan the events according to a users availability. Also, if an event is created during the break hours an alert will be thrown notifying about the users unavailability.

Similar to shift hours, you can choose the same or different break hours for each day in a week. Below are few important points you need to consider before defining the break hours:

• One shift can have a maximum of two break hours.
  
• Break hours must comply with the shift hours.
  

To add break hours

1. Navigate to Setup > Company Settings > Business Hours.
   
2. Under Shift Hours, click the shift where you want to add break hours.
   
3. Click the edit icon near the shift name.
4. Select the break hours. Select Same hours every day or Different hours every day from the drop-down list. Set the start and end timings.
5. Click Save.
   

Create Holiday Lists

In Zoho CRM you can create common holidays i.e holidays that are celebrated commonly across the globe called business holidays and specific holiday lists for users working at different shifts, depending on the geographical location they work for. You can create holiday lists for the current as well as the forthcoming year.

Business holidays are common to all employees across the organization. For example for users working in different shifts, say in US, UK, Germany, etc., the business holidays will apply to all users irrespective of their shift. Besides manually adding business holidays, you can use the predefined holiday list for your country from the Suggested Holidays. You can click Suggested Holidays under the Holiday list to auto populate holidays, which can be edited or deleted per your requirement.

1. Go to  Setup > Company Settings > Holidays.
   
2. In  Holidays Details  page, click  Create Holiday List.
   
3. In  Select Year, choose the year from the drop-down list
   
4. In  Apply To, select the shift(s) from the drop-down list.
   
   (Note that this option will appear only if you have already created shifts)
   
5. Enter Holiday name and select the Date from the calendar. 
   
6. Click the plus icon to add more holidays.
7. Click Save.

Note

• If you create a holiday list before creating shifts, the holiday list will by default be applicable to all the shifts that are created later.
  

C) To clone a holiday list

1. In the Holiday Details page, click the Clone button next to the holiday list.
   
2. Add/delete holidays or edit details in the existing holidays.
   
3. Edit the Year and Apply To dropdowns if you wish to.
   
4. Click Save.
   

Mark As Unavailable in the Calendar

You can mark yourself unavailable for a particular time of the day in the Zoho CRM calendar, this will ensure that other users are alerted about your unavailability if an event is created for that time.

To mark yourself unavailable

1. Click the Calendar icon in the sidebar.
   
2. Click a date.
3. Click Create and select Mark As Unavailable.
4. In the pop-up, select the from date and time and to date and time.
5. Enter Comments, if required.
   
6. Click Save.
   

How Business Hour Influences Other CRM Functions

Assigning Events

You can assign an event to the user based on their availability. If an event is assigned on a day which is either marked unavailable or not a working day of the user, you will be alerted to reschedule the event to another day. You can either reschedule the event or assign it anyway irrespective of the user's availability.

Setting Due Date in Repeat Events

If an event in your organization repeats at regular intervals, you can skip the weekends/holidays/non-working days. For events that repeat daily you can skip the weekends and holidays. If the event repeats monthly or yearly you can avoid it from repeating on a non-working day of the user.

To repeat event

1. Select the  Repeat Type  from the drop-down list and do the following:
   
   a) Daily - Click  Except weekends and holidays .
   
   b) Custom - Select  Monthly  /  Yearly  from the drop-down list.
   
   c) Click the checkbox  Reschedule events to the next working day if the selected day is not a working day .
   
2. Click  Done.
   

Setting Due Date in Repeat Tasks

If a task gets repeated everyday you can skip the weekends and holidays, similarly if a task is repeated yearly or monthly you can skip the non-business day of the user.

To repeat task,

1. Start the process of creating or editing a task.
2. Select the  Repeat Type  from the drop-down list and do the following:
   
   a) Daily - Click  Except weekends and holidays .
   
   b) Custom - Select  Monthly  /  Yearly  from the drop-down list.
   
   c) Click  Set due date to the next business day if the selected day is not a working day .
   
3. Click  Done.
   

Workflow Rules

Date/DateTime Based Trigger

You can set the workflow rule to trigger either after or before "n" business days/hours to skip non-working day of the user. To learn more, see Configuring workflow rules.

To select the date/time,

1. In Workflow Rules, select Rule Criteria > When do you want to execute this rule?
   
2. Select On a Date/DateTime.
   
3. In Execute, enter the Number of days/hours .
   
4. Select  Business hour(s)/Business day(s) from the drop-down list.
   
5. Click Next.
   

Instant Actions

While creating tasks as an instant action you can choose the due date to skip the non-working days.

To skip non-business days,

1. In the Instant Action, select Task.
   
2. In the Assign Task pop up, select Business days from the drop-down list.
   

Schedule Actions

Schedule actions can be set to trigger after "n" business days / hours to skip the non-working day of the user.

To skip non-business days,

1. Click  Scheduled Actions.
   
2. In Execute, enter the number of days.
   
3. Select Business hour(s)/Business day(s) from the drop-down list.
   

Tasks in Blueprint Transition

While defining a task in blueprint transitions you can skip the non-business day of the user, to ensure that the due date is scheduled when the user is available. To learn more, see Designing blueprints.

To set task due date,

1. In the  Blueprint Transitions > click After .
   
2. Select Task, in Due date, enter the number of days.
   
3. Select Business days from the drop-down list.
   
4. Click Save.