Menu Time Check: time-based IVR routing

A call at 2 in the afternoon should be handled differently from one at midnight. Menu Time Check lets your phone menu route by the clock, so daytime callers reach a queue and After hours callers hear a closed message or land in voicemail. It turns a static Call menu into one that knows what time it is.

What Menu Time Check does

Menu Time Check decides whether to restrict the menu to the specific hours set in a chosen Call Time. The default is 0, which means disabled, so the menu behaves the same around the clock. Turn it on and the menu starts caring about the current hour.

It only works when a Call Time is selected. A Call Time is a named schedule of open hours. If the Call Time field is left blank, Menu Time Check is ignored even when it is switched on, so the two settings are a pair. This IVR (interactive voice response) feature depends on both being filled in.

The TIMECHECK option

Once Menu Time Check is enabled and a Call Time is set, you can use TIMECHECK as a special Option Value. That option fires when the call comes in outside the open hours. You point it at wherever after-hours calls should go, such as a voicemail box or a recorded closed message ending in a hangup.

flowchart TD
  A[Call hits menu] --> B{Time Check on}
  B -->|No| C[Normal menu]
  B -->|Yes| D{Within Call Time}
  D -->|Yes| C
  D -->|No| E[TIMECHECK option]
  E --> F[After hours message]
  E --> G[Voicemail or hangup]

During open hours, the menu plays normally and the caller can press a key to reach an Ingroup where a live Agent answers. After hours, the TIMECHECK route takes over before any of that happens, so you never ring an empty office.

Mind the time zone

The open hours in a Call Time are evaluated against the server's clock, so it is worth confirming what time zone your box thinks it is in before you trust the routing. A schedule that looks correct on paper can fire an hour early or late if the server runs on a different zone than your office. Place a test call right at the edge of your open window to confirm the menu flips over when you expect it to.

Menu Time Check also pairs nicely with the after-hours handling built into the queue itself. The menu decides whether to even offer the daytime options, and the queue has its own behavior for what to do if a call somehow arrives when no one is staffed. Using both gives you a belt-and-braces setup, so a caller is never left ringing into an empty room regardless of which path the call takes.

When to use it

Reach for Menu Time Check whenever your office has fixed hours and you do not want callers waiting in a queue that no one is staffing. It pairs well with after-hours handling on the queue itself. For the bigger inbound picture, see our inbound call handling guide, and to build the daytime queue, read adding an inbound group.

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