Business Hours in Zoho Vertical Studio | Vertical Studio Help Guide

Business Hours

Business Hours in Company Settings define the default operational schedule for subscriber organizations in your Vertical Studio application. These settings help align workflows, activities, and time-based calculations with working schedules.

Shift Hours 

Shift hours helps you to assign different working schedules to teams or individuals. Check out the shift hours help document to learn more about assigning unique working hours for specific employees.
You can configure:
  1. Business Hours: Organization-level working schedule.
  2. Business hour mode: 24 x 7, 24 x 5, or custom working hours.
  3. Start day of week: Influences week-based reporting, filters, and criteria behavior.
  4. Shift Hours and Break Hours: Team- or user-specific working schedules.
  5. User assignment to shifts: Assign users to specific shift schedules. This can only be done in subscriber orgs, and not in Developer Console.
      
To set Business Hours and Shift Hours from the Developer Console:
  1. Log in to your Developer Console.
  2. Go to Build > Company Settings.
  3. Open Business Hours.
  4. Click + New Business Hours.
  5. Configure the required values:
    1. Business Hours mode
    2. Working days and hours
    3. Start day of week
  6. Click Save.

  7. Click + New Shift Hours. You can configure Shift Hours only after Business Hours are set.
  8. Enter Shift Hours details:
    1. Name
    2. Time zone
    3. Shift hours: Same hours every day or different hours every day
    4. Shift days
    5. Break hours
  9. Click Save.

  10. Publish a new application version.

Publish and Version upgrade behavior

Packaged Business Hours and Shift Hours settings are configured in the Developer Console and included in the published application version. These settings are non-upgradable for existing subscriber organizations once already deployed.
To know more about packaging, please refer to our guide on Components Packaging in Zoho Vertical Studio.
The following table explains the upgrade behavior of an existing packaged Business and Shift Hours settings that are already deployed in the subscriber's organization.
Property
Upgrade Type
Subscriber Modify Access
Business hours
Non-Upgradable
YES
Start day of the week
Non-Upgradable
YES
Shift hours and break hours
Non-Upgradable
YES
Assign users to shift hours
Non-Upgradable
YES

If Business Hours were not defined in your earlier versions, you can introduce new default Business Hours through an upgrade, as long as the subscribers have not already configured their own Business Hours.

Limits and Scalability

  1. Business Hours and Shift Hours changes are non-upgradable for existing subscriber organizations after deployment.
  2. You can introduce default Business Hours through an upgrade only if Business Hours were not defined in earlier versions and the subscriber has not already configured their own Business Hours.
  3. Developer-side updates do not overwrite existing subscriber-side Business Hours and Shift Hours once those values are already configured in subscriber organizations.
  4. Once deployed to a subscriber org, Business Hours configuration is fully owned by the subscriber.
  5. Any new developer-side updates to Business Hours components affect new signups only.
  6. A subscriber organization can create up to 50 shifts. Each shift can include a maximum of two break periods.
  7. Shift Hours can be configured only within the configured Business Hours.

Version scenarios

Version 1: Baseline state
Current developer version does not have Business Hours configured.
  1. Subscriber1: Business Hours are not set.
  2. Subscriber2: Business Hours and Shift Hours are already configured by the subscriber.
Version 2: Business Hours configured in Developer Console 
When subscribers upgrade to this version:
  1. Subscriber1: Receives the developer-configured Business Hours.
  2. Subscriber2: No change. Existing Business Hours and Shift Hours remain as configured by the subscriber.
For new signups on this version:
  1. Business Hours are created from the packaged defaults.
  2. Shift Hours are created only if Shift Hours are explicitly configured in the developer version.
  3. Subscribers can edit these settings after signup.

Version 3: Business Hours updated and Shift Hours configured
When existing subscribers upgrade to this version:
  1. Subscriber1: No change from the previously applied state. Later updates are not applied.
  2. Subscriber2: No change. Existing subscriber-configured Business Hours and Shift Hours are retained.

Changes and Impacts

Since Business and Shift Hours Settings cannot be modified, published, and pushed as an upgrade to the subscribers' accounts, there will be no impacts to the existing reports, workflows, and activities in the Subscriber's organization that are associated with the particular Business and Shift Hours. New signups receive the packaged values from the version they install.
After signup, subscribers can edit Business Hours and Shift Hours in their subscriber org. Those subscriber-side edits are retained and are not overwritten by later developer version upgrades. This ownership applies to Business Hours, Start Day of the Week, Shift Hours and Break Hours, and all others settings related to Business Hours.