How to manage business Hours in Zoho CRM

Estimated reading: 3 minutes 32 views

Introduction

Setting up business hours correctly in Zoho CRM helps your organisation operate smoothly across different time zones and shifts. Whether your team works 9–5 in the UK or covers international hours in the US, India, or Japan, Zoho CRM allows you to define custom working hours, assign shifts, add holidays, and even manage break times.

By configuring this properly, your CRM activities—like task scheduling, event planning, workflow automation, and reporting—will align seamlessly with your team’s actual availability.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Set Up Your Business Hours

To define your organisation’s working hours:

1) Go to Setup > General > Company Settings > Business Hours.

2) Click Create Business Hour

3) Choose from the following options:

4 )Choose the first day of your organisation’s working week (e.g. Monday)

5) Click Save

📝 Tip: You can set 24-hour operations even when choosing custom hours.

2. Create and Assign Shifts

If your team operates across time zones or in different shifts (e.g. night or weekend support), you can assign shift hours.

To create a shift:

1) Go to Setup > Company Settings > Business Hours

2) Click Create Shift Hours

3) Name your shift and select a time zone

4) Choose:

5) Click Save

To assign a shift:

1) Edit the shift you’ve created

2) Select users from the Assign To dropdown

3) Click Done and Save

⚠️ Note: You can create up to 50 shifts. Ensure shifts fall within your business hours to avoid conflicts.

3. Add Break Hours

Break times help indicate when a user is unavailable during their shift.

To add break hours:

1) After setting shift hours, click Break Hours

2) Select:

3) Choose the break times

4) Click Done and Save

4. Create Holiday Lists

Manage global and shift-specific holidays for different regions or teams.

To create a holiday list:

1) Go to Setup > Company Settings > Holidays

2) Click Create Holiday List

3) Select the Year

4) Choose Apply to Shift (appears only if shifts are created)

5) Add holiday names and dates

6) Click Save

You can also:

5. Mark Yourself as Unavailable in the Calendar

To block time in your calendar:

1) Click the Calendar icon

2) Choose a date and click Create

3) Select Mark As Unavailable

4) Set the time and add a comment (optional)

5) Click Save

Private events synced from tools like Google Calendar are marked as “Unavailable” in Zoho CRM.

How to manage business Hours in Zoho CRM

Introduction