Content last updated 2025-12-26

Schedules

Documentation on Zendesk schedules

This guide covers how to create, edit, and manage Zendesk schedules at GitLab. Administrators should review the Administrator tasks section.

Understanding schedules

What are schedules

Schedules in Zendesk are like schedules in most other things: windows of time. We use these to determine business hours and various regional working hours. This is a critical component for how Zendesk SLA policies work (as it details the window of time in which an SLA policy runs).

Within Zendesk, these have the ability to use a specific timezone and allow for the setting of holidays, both of which are vital components of how schedules work.

Using a schedule in Zendesk

Schedules are used to determine business hours for SLA calculations and time-based automations. Common uses include:

  • SLA policies (measuring FRT, NRT during business hours only)
  • Business hours triggers (actions that fire only during working hours)
  • Automations with time conditions

Schedules are typically applied at the ticket level through SLA policies or referenced in trigger/automation conditions.

Holidays

A holiday in a schedule is a set date where the “timers” do not run.

We do not currently use this feature in Zendesk (as decided by our legal team). The use of this feature will require legal approval as it has an impact on contractual requirements.

How we manage schedules

While Zendesk offers a full way to manage schedules via the UI, we turn to a more version controlled methodology. This allows for a set review process, the ability to perform rollbacks as needed, etc.

That being the case, we utilize sync repos.

Current schedules in use

  • Zendesk Global
    • Business Hours
      • Timezone: Pacific Time (US & Canada)
      • Weekly schedule:
        • Sunday: 1500-2400
        • Monday: 0000-2400
        • Tuesday: 0000-2400
        • Wednesday: 0000-2400
        • Thursday: 0000-2400
        • Friday: 0000-1700
        • Saturday: Closed
      • Holidays: none
    • 24x7 Support
      • Timezone: Pacific Time (US & Canada)
      • Weekly schedule:
        • Sunday: 0000-2400
        • Monday: 0000-2400
        • Tuesday: 0000-2400
        • Wednesday: 0000-2400
        • Thursday: 0000-2400
        • Friday: 0000-2400
        • Saturday: 0000-2400
      • Holidays: none
    • AMER
      • Timezone: Pacific Time (US & Canada)
      • Weekly schedule:
        • Sunday: Closed
        • Monday: 0500-1700
        • Tuesday: 0500-1700
        • Wednesday: 0500-1700
        • Thursday: 0500-1700
        • Friday: 0500-1700
        • Saturday: Closed
      • Holidays: none
    • APAC
      • Timezone: Brisbane
      • Weekly schedule:
        • Sunday: Closed
        • Monday: 0900-2100
        • Tuesday: 0900-2100
        • Wednesday: 0900-2100
        • Thursday: 0900-2100
        • Friday: 0900-2100
        • Saturday: Closed
      • Holidays: none
    • EMEA
      • Timezone: Amsterdam
      • Weekly schedule:
        • Sunday: Closed
        • Monday: 0800-1800
        • Tuesday: 0800-1800
        • Wednesday: 0800-1800
        • Thursday: 0800-1800
        • Friday: 0800-1800
        • Saturday: Closed
      • Holidays: none
  • Zendesk US Government
    • Standard Business Hours
      • Timezone: Pacific Time (US & Canada)
      • Weekly schedule:
        • Sunday: Closed
        • Monday: 0500-1700
        • Tuesday: 0500-1700
        • Wednesday: 0500-1700
        • Thursday: 0500-1700
        • Friday: 0500-1700
        • Saturday: Closed
      • Holidays: none
    • 24x7 Business Hours
      • Timezone: Pacific Time (US & Canada)
      • Weekly schedule:
        • Sunday: 0000-2400
        • Monday: 0000-2400
        • Tuesday: 0000-2400
        • Wednesday: 0000-2400
        • Thursday: 0000-2400
        • Friday: 0000-2400
        • Saturday: 0000-2400
      • Holidays: none

Creating schedules as a non-admin

For the creation of a schedule, please create a Feature Request issue (as it will require manual intervention by the Customer Support Operations team).

Editing schedules as a non-admin

For the modification of a schedule, please create a Feature Request issue (as it will require manual intervention by the Customer Support Operations team).

Deleting schedules as a non-admin

For the deletion of a schedule, please create a Feature Request issue (as it will require manual intervention by the Customer Support Operations team).

Administrator tasks

Viewing schedules in Zendesk

  1. Navigate to the admin dashboard for the Zendesk instance
  2. Go to Objects and rules > Business rules > Schedules

You can click on the schedule’s name if you need to see the actual schedule’s timeslots or holiday settings.

Creating a schedule

for the creation of a schedule, you will need to create a MR in the sync repo. The exact changes being made will depend on the request itself. A starting template you can use would be:

---
name: 'Schedule name here'
previous_name: 'Schedule name here'
time_zone: 'Timezone to use here'
sunday: []
monday:
- START-END
tuesday:
- START-END
wednesday:
- START-END
thursday:
- START-END
friday:
- START-END
saturday: []

For the time_zone attribute, it should be one of the approved time zones we use:

  • Zendesk Global
    • For AMER schedules: Pacific Time (US & Canada)
    • For APAC schedules: Brisbane
    • For EMEA schedules: Amsterdam
    • For anything else: Pacific Time (US & Canada)
  • Zendesk US Government
    • Pacific Time (US & Canada)

For the array items under the sunday, monday, …, saturday attributes, it should be an array of time slots to use (written in 24 hour code format). For the very end of the day (midnight), use 2400. As an example, if you wanted to have a schedule apply the timeslots of 0700 to 1200 and 1500-2300 on Mondays, you would do:

monday:
- 0700-1200
- 1500-2300

After a peer reviews and approves your MR, you can merge the MR. When the next deployment occurs, it will be synced to Zendesk.

Editing a schedule

To edit a schedule, you will need to create a MR in the sync repo. The exact changes being made will depend on the request itself.

After a peer reviews and approves your MR, you can merge the MR. When the next deployment occurs, it will be synced to Zendesk.

Changing the name of a schedule

If you need to change the name of a schedule, copy the current value into the previous_name attribute and then change the name attribute. This allows the sync to still locate the SLA policy in question to update.

Deleting a schedule

As the sync repos do not perform deletions, you will have to do 2 actions to delete a schedule.

First, you must delete the corresponding file from the sync repo. After a peer reviews and approves your MR, you can merge the MR.

After that is done, you then must delete it from Zendesk itself.

To delete a schedule in Zendesk:

  1. Navigate to the admin dashboard for the Zendesk instance
  2. Go to Objects and rules > Business rules > Schedules
  3. Click the three vertical dots to the right of the schedule’s name
  4. Click Delete
  5. Click Delete to confirm the deletion

Performing an exception deployment

To perform an exception deployment for schedules, navigate to the schedules sync project in question, go to the scheduled pipelines page, and click the play button for the sync item. This will trigger a sync job for the schedules.

Common issues and troubleshooting

This is a living section that will have items added to it as needed.

Not seeing schedule changes after a merge

As schedules follow the Standard deployment type, they would only be deployed during a normal deployment cycle (or when an exception deployment has been done)

Last modified March 1, 2026: Disallow 12x5 US Gov customers from weekend emergency support (69f91d87)
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