What is time-of-day routing?

Time-of-day routing helps you adjust how your calls are routed to your team depending on the time of day. For example, during regular office hours, you can send customers to a custom phone menu and connect them with the right member of your team. For after-hours calls, send callers to a different phone menu with customer service options.

Time-of-day routing: Never miss any important calls

How does time of day routing work in OpenPhone?

There are multiple ways to set business hours and handle incoming calls during and after business hours in OpenPhone.Enable routing by adjusting the call flow settings in your OpenPhone workspace:

Set your business hours for every day of the week, including weekends.
Add a phone menu during business hours to automatically route to specific colleagues, departments, or an external number.
Set a ring order to prioritize who gets incoming calls first.
Specify what happens when a call goes unanswered; for example, you can add a custom voicemail greeting.
Direct calls that come in outside business hours to a forwarding number.

Go further with your call routing with the new call flow builder, now in beta:

Opt in to the beta and use the visual call flow builder.
Add business hours to your call flows and modify your call routing to include an after-hours ring group or phone menu.

Curious about how to navigate the builder? Here’s a guide to setting up the OpenPhone call flow builder.

Route calls smarter with OpenPhone

Customize every step of your call flows.

Avoid missing customer calls

Answer calls faster by simultaneously ringing all team members on a shared number or creating a custom ring order to ring teammates one at a time. Add individual work schedules to ensure calls only ring colleagues who are available.

A screen with a ring order and ring duration.

Automatically direct calls to reach the right teammates

Let your customers use a phone menu to automatically connect with teammates skilled to answer their questions.

Set backup options for when your team is unavailable

Record custom voicemail greetings and create auto-replies to keep customers informed no matter when they’re calling or forward their call to an external answering service or emergency number.

All the call management features your team needs

Make group calls

Bring all the stakeholders into the conversation

Forward calls

Set a backup forwarding number and never leave a call unanswered

Record calls on autopilot

Capture every customer detail with automatic call recording, call summaries, and call transcription

Transfer your calls smoothly

Hand off incoming calls with the right amount of context

Customize your caller ID

Help customers recognize your number with business caller ID

Integrate your tools

Automatically share your call and message logs with your other tools

See all features Try for free

Route calls in four simple steps

It’s easy to configure time-of-day routing in OpenPhone.

Create an OpenPhone account.
Launch the OpenPhone web, desktop, or mobile app.
Import your contact and invite your teammates to your account.
Customize your business number settings.

That’s it! You’re ready to route calls based on a time schedule.

A conversation between two people on a messaging app.

Why thousands of teams love OpenPhone

Here’s why OpenPhone is the #1 business phone, as voted for by thousands of professionals

Calling and texting for remote teams

Provide great customer service and stay connected no matter where you’re working from with OpenPhone.

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Sync all your customer communications in one place with OpenPhone’s iOS, Android, desktop, and browser apps.

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Give each team a phone number

Add phone numbers for each team as your business grows, including local US and Canadian numbers and North American toll-free numbers. Share numbers across multiple team members or different departments.

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Each team member who joins your workspace can also get a direct phone number, as each user on your plan includes one unique phone number.

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Plus, get additional numbers for just $5 per month.

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Get visibility into your team’s conversations

Know what everyone is working on with shared numbers. Break your team’s silos and make sure everyone is on the same page.

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Provide timely feedback directly with internal threads. Tag specific team members on customer follow-ups or troubleshoot ongoing issues. Get visibility into whether a teammate is caught up with inbox viewers.

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Reach more customers by text

Connect with more customers in less time by texting with OpenPhone.

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Create auto-replies to respond to customers even when you’re not available. Always reach your customers at a convenient time by scheduling messages in advance. Share answers to common questions in seconds with snippets.

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Need to bring a group of people together in one conversation? Use group texting to get everyone aligned.

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Personalize every interaction

Build stronger customer relationships and never forget important customer details, like an upcoming birthday or vacation plans.

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Customize how you organize and categorize your contacts with custom properties and contact notes in OpenPhone.

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Make admin work disappear

Automate manual work and give your team more time to focus on customers.

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Quickly hop from one meeting to the next without having to spend time taking notes with AI call summaries and call transcriptions. Plus, automatically categorize and sort calls with AI call tags.

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Keep your systems up to date in the background with our VoIP integrations, including our native HubSpot and Salesforce integrations.

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Go even further with automation in OpenPhone — connect all your tools with our Zapier integration or the OpenPhone API.

“OpenPhone is extremely easy to use. We have a 6-person office routing calls to two companies, and the combination of simplicity and features is incredible.”

Sean Williams

Managing Director, Nymble Insurance

Frequently asked questions

Can’t find the answer here? Check out our Help Center.

What routing options are available in OpenPhone during and after business hours?

OpenPhone has several routing options available during and after business hours:

Phone menu: Customers can navigate to their preferred member of your team with a custom phone menu (also known as auto attendant or IVR). Offer different phone menus during business hours (when everyone on your team is available) and after hours (when you might only offer customer support).
Ring order: Choose which members of your team receive incoming calls with ring order. You can ring team members all at once, at random, or in custom batches.
Unanswered call options: For calls that go unanswered, you can provide custom voicemail greetings or auto-replies and let customers know their next steps. You can also forward unanswered calls to a backup number or an external answering service.

How do I set business hours in OpenPhone?

It’s easy to set your business hours in OpenPhone.

Here’s how to set business hours on the web or desktop app:

Click Settings in the top left corner menu and choose Phone Numbers under Workspace.
Scroll to Business Hours in phone number settings and toggle on Enable business hours.
Select the time zone and your team’s availability for different days of the week.
You can set a custom voicemail greeting for callers outside business hours. Click Change to the right of Away Voicemail Greeting.

Here’s how to set business hours in the mobile app:

Launch the OpenPhone mobile app.
Select your picture icon at the top left of the screen.
Tap Manage next to Your numbers.
Select the number you'd like to create business hours for.
Tap on Business Hours.
Tap "Set your hours and enter the start time and end time.
Input your timezone and weekly schedule.
If you want to create a custom voicemail greeting for callers outside business hours, you can record your voice or upload an existing voicemail file (MP3) for your away voicemail greeting.