📅 Schedule Management – User Guide

The Schedule Management tool lets you view and manage Hours of Operation and Overrides for your Amazon Connect instances — directly from the portal, without needing access to the Connect console.

Hours of Operation

An Hours of Operation (HoO) defines the standard weekly schedule for a queue or contact flow. Each day has open/close times and a timezone setting. For example: Monday–Friday 08:00–17:00 CET.

Overrides

An Override temporarily changes the schedule for a specific date range. Overrides take priority over the base schedule. Common uses:

• Full closure — e.g. Christmas Day, New Year’s Day
• Reduced hours — e.g. Christmas Eve closes at 14:00
• Extended hours — e.g. Black Friday open until 22:00
• Recurring — e.g. every Saturday closed (repeats weekly)

Closure Messages

Each override can have an optional Closure Message — a text string that your Connect flow reads aloud (TTS) to callers when the override is active. This lets you say “We are closed for Christmas and will reopen on January 2nd” instead of a generic “We are currently closed”.

How Connect Uses Them

In your Connect flow, the Check hours of operation block evaluates the HoO and returns one of these outcomes:

Navigating to Schedule Management

1. 1 Log in to the GN Connect Tools Portal at aws-connect-tools.gn.com.
2. 2 Click the Schedule Management card on the homepage.
3. 3 Select your Region (US, EU, Tokyo, or Sydney) from the dropdown.
4. 4 Select an Hours of Operation from the dropdown. The schedule details and overrides will load.

Viewing Schedule Details

The Schedule tab shows the weekly hours grid — each day with its open and close times. The Overrides tab lists all existing overrides with their date ranges, whether they are one-time or recurring, and whether they close the line or change the hours.

Audit Log

The Audit tab shows a history of all changes made to the selected schedule (and its overrides), including who made the change, what was changed, and when.

Adding a Holiday / Closure

1. 1 On the Overrides tab, click Add Override.
2. 2 Enter a Name (e.g. Christmas Day 2026) and Description.
3. 3 Choose One-Time or Recurring.
4. 4 Set the Effective From and Effective To dates.
5. 5 Check Closed all day if the line should be completely closed. Otherwise, set the opening hours for each day in the range.
6. 6 Optionally, enter a Closure Message (see next section).
7. 7 Click Save Override.

Editing & Deleting Overrides

Click the Edit button on any override row to modify it. Click Delete to remove it permanently. Both actions are logged in the audit trail.

Closure messages let you attach a custom text-to-speech message to each override. When a caller rings during an active override, your Connect flow can read this message aloud instead of a generic “we are closed” prompt.

Setting Up a Closure Message

1. 1 When creating or editing an override, check Closed all day.
2. 2 The Closure Message (TTS) field will appear below.
3. 3 Enter the message you want callers to hear. For example:
   Thank you for calling. We are closed today for Christmas and will reopen on Monday, December 28th. Happy holidays!
4. 4 Save the override. The closure message is stored in DynamoDB, linked to this specific override.

How It Works

A dedicated Lambda function (ScheduleManagement-GetClosureMessage-{region}) is invoked by your Connect flow. It:

• Receives the HoursOfOperationId from the contact attributes
• Queries DynamoDB for all closure messages linked to that HoO
• Finds the message whose date range covers today
• Returns ClosureMessage, OverrideName, and HasClosureMessage

This section explains how to set up a Connect flow that checks hours of operation, handles override closures with custom messages, and plays prompts from Data Tables when the line is open.

Full Flow Diagram

Step-by-Step: Check Hours Block

1. 1 Check hours of operation block:
   • Select your Hours of Operation (e.g. GNH EU Support)
   • Ensure Check Override is enabled (True)
   • This makes the block return OpenedByOverride and ClosedByOverride in addition to True/False
2. 2 Branch configuration:
   • True / OpenedByOverride → Route to your IVR / queue (the line is open)
   • ClosedByOverride → Route to the closure message lookup (see next section)
   • False → Play generic “out of hours” message and disconnect
   • Error → Fall back to “out of hours” (safe default)

Open Branch: Data Tables & Prompts

When the line is open (True or OpenedByOverride), you typically continue to your IVR menu. If you use Data Tables for prompt management, see the Prompt Management User Guide for detailed instructions on:

• Setting up Data Tables with prompt columns
• Using the Evaluate Data Table block to load prompts
• Configuring Play Prompt blocks with SSML and dynamic references
• Multi-language branching and voice selection

This is the ClosedByOverride branch. It calls a Lambda to look up the holiday-specific closure message and plays it if one exists.

Detailed Flow

Step-by-Step

1. 1 Set contact attributes block:
   • Destination: User Defined
   • Key: HoursOfOperationId
   • Value: The UUID of the Hours of Operation being checked
   Example: 43cd7727-d15c-46b7-8409-23f25d2dc011
2. 2 Invoke AWS Lambda function block:
   • Function: ScheduleManagement-GetClosureMessage-{region}
   • Timeout: 3 seconds (recommended)
   • Response type: String Map
   • On Error: Route to generic closed message (safe fallback)
3. 3 Check contact attributes block:
   • Type: External
   • Attribute: HasClosureMessage
   • Condition: Equals → true
4. 4 Play prompt block (true branch):
   • Interpret as: SSML
   • Source: Dynamic
   • Attribute: External > ClosureMessage
   (Reference: $.External.ClosureMessage)
5. 5 Play prompt block (no match branch):
   • Set to Text with your generic closed message
   • Example: We are currently closed. Please try again during business hours.
6. 6 Disconnect block: After playing the message, disconnect the call.

Finding the HoO UUID

You can find the UUID of each Hours of Operation in the Schedule Management portal. When you select an HoO from the dropdown, the URL or the page data will show the ID. Alternatively, use the Amazon Connect console under Routing → Hours of operation.

Lambda per Region

Lambda Return Values

Common Mistakes

Best Practices