Business Hours
Business Hours is a Setup page where administrators define the operating hours for the organization, including specific days and times for each day of the week.
Definition
Business Hours is a Setup page where administrators define the operating hours for the organization, including specific days and times for each day of the week. Business Hours are used by Case escalation rules, entitlement processes, and milestones to calculate response and resolution times based on when the support team is actually available.
In plain English
“Here's a simple way to think about it: Business Hours decide when the SLA clock is actually ticking. Tells Salesforce when your support team is open; case escalations, entitlement milestones use it to start and stop timers.”
Worked example
The admin at QuickAssist Insurance sets up two Business Hours records: "US Support" (Monday-Friday, 8am-6pm EST) and "Global 24/7" for premium clients. When a Case is created for a premium client at 11pm on a Friday, the entitlement milestone timer continues counting because the Global 24/7 business hours apply, whereas a standard Case would pause until Monday morning.
Why Business Hours decide when the SLA clock is actually ticking
When a customer opens a case at 11pm on Friday, you don't want your two-hour-response SLA to start counting down through the weekend. Business Hours is the configuration that prevents that. It tells Salesforce when your support team is actually open - Monday-through-Friday, 9-to-5, with whatever holiday calendar you maintain - and case escalations, entitlement milestones, and queue-based assignments use it to decide when timers run and when they pause.
The reason this is administrator territory rather than service-team territory is that the same Business Hours record can serve different teams in different ways. A 24/7 critical-issues queue uses one definition; a regional sales-ops queue uses another; an APAC support pod needs its own. Misconfigured Business Hours is one of the most common sources of phantom SLA misses - the timer ran when it shouldn't have, and someone explains it on a call. Worth getting right at setup, worth re-validating every time the team's coverage model changes.
How to set up Business Hours
Business Hours define when your team is available to take Cases — drives entitlement clocks, escalation rules, and milestone timing. Most orgs need at least one Business Hours record per region (Americas / EMEA / APAC) so SLA timers pause overnight in each timezone.
- Open Setup → Business Hours
Setup gear → Quick Find: Business Hours → Business Hours.
- Click New Business Hours
Top-right of the list.
- Set Name and tick Active
Conventions: "Americas Standard," "EMEA Premium 24/5," "Global 24/7."
- Pick Time Zone
The timezone the business hours are interpreted in. Important for distributed teams.
- Set days and start/end times
Per day: tick Active and set Start / End. Half days are fine. 24-hour days set Start = 00:00, End = 11:59 PM.
- (Optional) Tick Use these business hours as the default
The default is what new Cases inherit unless explicitly assigned different hours.
- Save
Business Hours record is created. Now link Holidays (Setup → Holidays) and reference from Entitlement Processes / Escalation Rules / Cases.
Drives interpretation of start/end times.
Each day can be active or off. 24-hour days = 00:00 to 11:59 PM.
Marks this record as the org default. Only one can be marked default.
Holidays must be linked separately (Setup → Holidays → click into a holiday → link Business Hours).
- Business Hours can be assigned per-Case but most orgs forget. Without explicit assignment, every Case uses the default — which means EMEA Cases use Americas hours and SLA timers tick wrong overnight.
- Holidays are stand-alone records that have to be linked to each Business Hours that observes them. Adding a holiday to one Business Hours record doesn't propagate to others.
- Time zone changes (e.g. switching DST) don't auto-adjust Business Hours start/end times. If your Business Hours are set in absolute UTC, fine; if in a local time zone, daylight savings shifts the effective coverage.
How organizations use Business Hours
Different Business Hours per team - 24/7 critical-issues, regional support, APAC pod - each with own SLA timing.
Compliance team verifies SLA reporting accuracy; Business Hours configuration matches operational reality.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Business Hours.
- Set Business HoursSalesforce Help
- Guidelines for Setting Business HoursSalesforce Help
Test your knowledge
Q1. Can a Salesforce admin configure Business Hours without writing code?
Q2. In which area of Salesforce would you typically find Business Hours?
Q3. Why is understanding Business Hours important for Salesforce admins?
Discussion
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