Use this article to set a Fin Guidance rule to apply only during, or only outside, one of your office hours schedules, understand how Fin checks the rule when it answers, and troubleshoot a schedule that isn't behaving as expected. This is available to any teammate who can manage Fin Guidance.
What is office hours scheduling for guidance?
Office hours scheduling lets you set a Fin Guidance rule to apply only during, or only outside, one of your workspace's office hours schedules — for example, promising a quick reply from a human while your team is online, and a different message overnight. Fin checks the rule every time it answers, so you no longer need to turn guidance on and off by hand.
How to set a guidance rule to During or Outside office hours
In the guidance editor, find the Schedule row under Channels. It shows Any time by default, which means the guidance always applies, as it does today.
Open the Schedule row and select Office hours.
Choose During or Outside, then pick one of your workspace's office hours schedules. The picked schedule's hours show underneath the selector, for example "Weekdays 9am – 5pm • London".
Select Manage office hours to open Settings > Office hours in a new tab if you need to create or edit a schedule — schedules themselves aren't created or edited in the guidance editor.
Save and enable the guidance as you normally would.
Note: A guidance's schedule rule is saved with the guidance, and stays in place through pausing and enabling, duplicating, and version history — restoring an older version of a guidance restores the schedule that version had.
How Fin applies a scheduled guidance rule
Once a guidance has a During or Outside rule, Fin checks it every time it answers, on every channel where it uses guidance: a During rule only applies while the schedule is open, and an Outside rule only applies while it's closed. Fin uses the schedule's own timezone, regardless of what timezone the workspace is in. Preview in the guidance editor follows the same rule, so you can test how Fin responds at different times before enabling it.
A schedule can't be deleted while a guidance still uses it — the delete dialog in Settings > Office hours lists which guidance is using it. Change those guidance to Any time, or to a different schedule, before deleting. Once a guidance stops using a schedule, it can be deleted again.
What are the limitations of office hours scheduling for guidance?
One rule per guidance: a guidance can be set to During or Outside a single schedule — rules can't be combined, and there's no way to set a custom one-off time window.
Fin only: Copilot guidance doesn't have a Schedule row, so this isn't available for Copilot guidance.
Deleted schedule: if the schedule a guidance points to is deleted, a During rule never applies and an Outside rule always applies.
Simulations: simulations use the real current time rather than a simulated time, so they won't reflect a schedule's During/Outside state the way a live conversation would. Use Preview instead, or test while the schedule is actually open or closed.
Guidance limit: the workspace guidance limit counts all guidance, whatever schedule it uses.
The Fin setup agent keeps any existing schedules already on a guidance, but doesn't set new ones for you.
How to troubleshoot office hours scheduling for guidance
The following table covers common scenarios when a scheduled guidance rule doesn't behave as expected and what to check for each.
Scenario | What to check |
Fin used the guidance at the wrong time | Check the guidance's rule (During or Outside, and which schedule) and the schedule's hours, timezone, and holidays at the time of the conversation. |
Fin never uses a "During" guidance | The schedule may have been deleted, or its hours may never cover the times customers write in. |
A schedule can't be deleted | The delete dialog lists what uses it. Change those guidance to Any time or another schedule first. |
No Schedule row appears in the guidance editor | This is Copilot guidance, which doesn't support scheduling. |
A test or simulation doesn't match the expected time | Simulations use the real current time (a known limitation). Use Preview instead, or test while the schedule is actually open or closed. |
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