> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ibubbl.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# After-Hours Auto-Reply

> Answer texts that arrive while you are closed, automatically.

When someone texts you while you're closed, iBubbl can answer for you: "Thanks for your message! We're closed right now and will get back to you tomorrow at 8:00 AM CST." It's a ready-made workflow you can edit.

## Set it up

1. **Set your business hours.** Go to **Settings → Hours → Business hours**. By default they are **the same as your booking hours**. Turn that off to set different ones. Business hours use your own time zone, which is shown next to the schedule.
2. **Create the workflow.** On **Automations**, choose **New workflow → After-hours auto-reply**. It's created as a draft.
3. **Edit the message** if you like, then **Activate** it.

## What it does

```
Someone texts you (direct messages only)
  → wait 2 minutes
  → are you closed, and has nobody on your team replied?
       yes → send the after-hours reply, and tag the contact "after-hours"
       no  → do nothing
```

* **About 2 minutes after the text.** The wait gives your team a chance to answer first. If anyone replies in that time, from the dashboard, the API, an integration or a scheduled send, no auto-reply goes out.
* **Checked at the moment it would reply, not when the text arrived.** A text at 8:59 AM whose reply would go out at 9:01 AM, after you've opened, gets no "we're closed" message.
* **Once per contact every 12 hours.** Three texts in one evening get one reply. This also stops two businesses' auto-replies from answering each other all night. You can change the number of hours on the Send step (**At most once per contact every N hours**), from 1 to 168. While the step is set to **Send right away even outside sending hours**, the limit can't be turned off: the workflow won't activate without it.
* **Direct messages only.** Group chats never get an auto-reply. The reply would go to one person privately, not to the group.
* **It answers even outside your [sending hours](https://docs.ibubbl.com/concepts/working-hours.md)**, because it is a reply to someone who just texted you. That exception applies only for **20 minutes** after their message arrived. If the reply can't go out in that time, for example because your line is offline, it is **cancelled** so that it never arrives later. A cancelled reply fires [`message.cancelled`](https://docs.ibubbl.com/webhooks/events).
* **The `after-hours` tag** lets you filter your inbox in the morning and pick up those conversations first.

The message can include `{{ live.next_open_label }}`, which reads like "tomorrow at 8:00 AM CST" or "Monday at 8:00 AM CST", in your time zone. If no day is open, it falls back to the text after `or`, "as soon as we can" in the template.

## Testing it

Open the workflow's **Test** tab. You can choose whether to treat the business as open or closed and whether a rep has replied, then see which path the workflow takes without sending anything.

## Limits

* Holidays and one-off closures aren't supported yet. Business hours are a weekly schedule.
* STOP messages and opted-out or blocked contacts never start the workflow.


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