Choose your business days and holidays
The Business calendar answers one question: does this date count as a business day for your business? It supplies the dates for calculations such as a delivery promise measured in business days.
It does not set a delivery promise, opening time or appointment slot. The calendar applies across the workspace, not separately to each branch.
How it works
Section titled “How it works”Business days are not opening hours
Section titled “Business days are not opening hours”Keep these four settings separate:
| What you need to describe | Where it belongs |
|---|---|
| Which dates count toward “three business days” | The Business calendar in this article |
| When customers can visit, including holiday opening hours | Your location’s opening hours |
| When your team is available to help customers | Team support hours |
| When customers can book a meeting | Appointment availability |
Adding a date to Closed dates here does not close a branch’s opening schedule or block appointments. Adding a date to Open dates does not create opening hours or appointment availability. Set those separately when the same closure or extra working day affects them too.
Where to find it
Section titled “Where to find it”Open the Handbook, expand What [assistant name] knows, select Business, then open Business calendar. The heading uses your bot’s name. The same calendar is also available under Settings → Workspace, where Market is among the workspace details and Business days is a separate card.
Set it up
Section titled “Set it up”In the Handbook editor
Section titled “In the Handbook editor”- Click a calendar value in the Business calendar sentence, such as its market or working days, to open Business days.
- Review Market calendar.
- Review Working days.
- Review the holiday-eve switch, if shown.
- Review both date lists.
- Choose Save.
This editor has an explicit Save button. Your edits are not applied just because you changed a field. Use Cancel to leave without applying them.
If you change the market, save and reopen the editor before reviewing its inherited working days and holiday-eve options.
In Workspace settings
Section titled “In Workspace settings”- Choose the calendar to follow under Market.
- Choose Show advanced options in the Business days card if the working days and date lists are hidden.
- Make your changes.
- Wait for the save status at the top of the screen to finish.
Workspace changes save automatically; there is no separate Save button for these controls. For a date exception, choose the date and click Add so it joins the list. Merely choosing a date in the empty input does not add it to the Workspace list.
Add or remove a date exception
Section titled “Add or remove a date exception”- In either editor above, choose a date under Closed dates or Open dates.
- Click Add.
- Repeat for each date you need, up to 366 dates in each list.
- In the Handbook, choose Save. In Workspace, wait for autosave.
To remove an exception:
- Click the cross beside the listed date. Its accessible label is Remove followed by the date.
- Save in the Handbook, or wait for Workspace autosave.
Removing an exception returns that date to the normal weekday and holiday rules; removing a closed date does not necessarily make it a business day.
Ask the Coach or a connected agent
Section titled “Ask the Coach or a connected agent”Ask the Coach to change your holiday market, working week, holiday-eve choice or specific closed/open dates. Review the proposal and click Save to save it. The proposal does not change anything before approval.
A connected agent with permission to change Workspace settings can read the same calendar and save a change directly. It reads your stored choices alongside the calendar that currently applies. Market and business-day changes are separate, so changing the market does not erase your custom working days or date exceptions. You can review or undo a connected-agent change in Recent changes.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”| On-screen setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Market calendar in the Handbook; Market in Workspace | Chooses the source of the default working week and public holidays | Automatic |
| Working days | Selects which weekdays normally count, before holidays and date exceptions are applied | Sunday–Thursday for Israel; Monday–Friday for US or Generic |
| Holiday eves count as business days | When on, the Israeli calendar’s listed holiday eves are no longer excluded just for being eves | Off; shown for Israel |
| Closed dates | Excludes individual dates, such as a company holiday; maximum 366 saved dates across all years | Empty |
| Open dates | Includes individual dates even on a normally non-working weekday or built-in holiday; maximum 366 saved dates across all years, separately from Closed dates | Empty |
| Show advanced options / Hide advanced options in Workspace | Shows or hides the editing fields; does not change the calendar | Collapsed for an uncustomized calendar unless you have chosen to show it |
All seven weekdays are available under Working days. Select every day if every weekday normally counts. Clearing every weekday restores the market default; it does not create a calendar with no business days.
Turning on the holiday-eve switch does not turn a normally non-working weekday into a business day. It also does not make the holiday itself count. Use Open dates for a specific exception.
Market calendar: Automatic, Israel or United States
Section titled “Market calendar: Automatic, Israel or United States”The market supplies a default working week and a built-in holiday calendar. The default choice is automatic.
In Workspace settings, Automatic (Israel), Automatic (United States) or Automatic (Generic) shows which calendar would be selected automatically. The market name in parentheses can change with your business’s country details.
Automatic first uses your phone-country setting, if you chose one. Otherwise it uses the country of the primary location’s valid service phone. If neither supplies a country, Hebrew as the workspace language selects Israel; other languages do not select a country-specific calendar on their own. Israel selects the Israeli calendar, the United States selects the US calendar, and other or unknown countries use the generic calendar.
| Choice | Default working days | Built-in holidays |
|---|---|---|
| Israel | Sunday–Thursday | The Israeli holiday list below; holiday eves do not count by default |
| United States | Monday–Friday | The US federal holiday list below; no separate holiday-eve switch |
| Automatic resolving to Generic | Monday–Friday | None; add your holidays as Closed dates |
You can explicitly choose Israel or United States instead of automatic. An explicit choice stays selected when the business’s country details change. Generic is not a separate selectable option; it is the fallback used by automatic.
To return to automatic, choose the Automatic (…) option under Market in Workspace settings. This is also the clearest place to check what automatic would use.
Which Israeli holidays are built in?
Section titled “Which Israeli holidays are built in?”The Israeli calendar excludes:
- Both days of Rosh Hashana.
- Yom Kippur.
- The first day of Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret.
- The first and seventh days of Pesach.
- Shavuot.
- Independence Day, on its observed date.
With Holiday eves count as business days off, it also excludes the eves of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot, plus Memorial Day immediately before the observed Independence Day.
It does not automatically exclude every day between holiday dates. For example, intermediate days of Sukkot and Pesach are not automatically closed. Add them to Closed dates if your business does not count them. The calendar follows the Israeli holiday pattern, not the extra festival days observed outside Israel.
Which US holidays are built in?
Section titled “Which US holidays are built in?”The US calendar includes New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
For business-day counting, a fixed-date holiday falling on Saturday is observed on Friday; one falling on Sunday is observed on Monday. This follows the usual US federal holiday calendar.
This is not a promise that every private business follows the same calendar. If you count one of these holidays as a business day, add its excluded date to Open dates. If you do not count an extra date, such as the day after Thanksgiving, add it to Closed dates. There is no separate holiday-eve setting for the US calendar.
What happens when…
Section titled “What happens when…”You edit the calendar in a different place
Section titled “You edit the calendar in a different place”The Handbook and Workspace settings edit the same calendar. A change saved in one appears in the other. Custom working days, a custom holiday-eve choice or saved date exceptions keep the advanced fields visible, even if you choose Hide advanced options.
You switch markets
Section titled “You switch markets”Working days you have not customized follow the selected market. A custom working week or saved date exceptions remain your choices when you switch markets; review them after the switch.
You need exceptions for another year
Section titled “You need exceptions for another year”These are individual dates, not yearly recurring rules. Add the relevant dates again for a later year. Closed dates and Open dates each have a separate limit of 366 saved dates across all years, not 366 per year. A list with more than 366 dates will not save. Remove obsolete exceptions from that list to free space before adding more.
A date should count despite the normal rules
Section titled “A date should count despite the normal rules”Open dates override the usual weekday and holiday exclusions. An explicit opening also takes precedence over a closure when the calendar is evaluated. However, the editor does not let you save the same date in both lists: remove it from Closed dates before adding it to Open dates, or the other way round.
Upcoming closures looks empty or incomplete
Section titled “Upcoming closures looks empty or incomplete”Upcoming closures appears in the Handbook calendar and in the Workspace Business days card, even while that card’s advanced fields are hidden. It is a short preview of saved holidays, excluded holiday eves and your closed dates within the next 60 days. It does not list ordinary non-working weekdays or every future closure.
An open-date exception removes that date from this preview. With a generic calendar and no custom closed dates, the preview can be empty even though weekends still do not count as business days. Check the working-day selection as well as the preview.
You need a delivery promise or a counting rule
Section titled “You need a delivery promise or a counting rule”The calendar does not specify “three days,” an order cutoff, or whether counting starts on the order day or the following business day. Record those rules separately in your knowledge or through teaching and learning.
For example, a useful policy states all of the following:
- The promised number of business days.
- Whether the promise starts from ordering, payment, pickup or another event.
- Whether that event’s day counts as day one.
- Any cutoff time and what happens after it.
Changing the calendar alone does not supply these missing rules.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”- A holiday counts unexpectedly: check the market, holiday-eve switch, working weekdays and Open dates. For a market without built-in holidays, enter the relevant Closed dates yourself.
- A location still looks open: edit its opening hours and holiday hours separately. This calendar is for counting dates.
- A date will not save: check the field error and make sure the date is not in both lists. Each list allows at most 366 saved dates across all years; remove obsolete exceptions from the full list before adding more.
- Someone else changed the settings: reload, review the saved values, then make your edit again.
- The controls are missing or read-only: ask the workspace owner to check your permissions. Editing through the Handbook needs both Handbook editing access and Workspace editing access.
If a valid change still fails to save after correcting errors and reloading, contact support.