Seasonal Scheduling: How to Set Up Summer Hours for Your Company and Team in RingEX

Summertime often brings a shift in business momentum. Whether your company is transitioning to "Summer Fridays," operating on a seasonal schedule, or letting employees set flexible hours for their family vacations, your phone system needs to match that reality.

If you leave your RingCentral settings on autopilot, you risk missed client calls or, conversely, team members getting pinged on their personal devices during a hard-earned beach day.

To help our community members stay ahead of the sun, here is a complete guide to setting up seasonal schedules in RingEX, broken down into The Company Version (for overall business operations) and The User Version (for individual extensions).

Part 1: The Company Version (For Admins)

If your entire business, specific office location, or main call queues change their availability during the summer months, use these administrative controls.

Method A: Overhauling Core Business Hours

If the whole organization shifts uniformly (e.g., changing from 9-5 to 8-4 for the months of June through August), modifying your main Auto-Receptionist schedule is the cleanest route.

• How to do it: In the Admin Portal, go to Phone System > Auto-Receptionist > General Settings. Under Schedule, select Specific schedule, set your new summer times, and click Save.  - More information
• The Catch: This updates the system permanently until you manually change it back.

Method B: Setting Up a Company Custom Rule

If you are implementing "Summer Fridays" (closing early just one day a week) or closing down for a specific 2-week summer block, you don't want to change your baseline business hours. A time-specific Custom Rule is much more flexible. - More information

1. Access the Custom Rules Menu: Admin Portal Access.

Log into the Admin Portal, navigate to Phone System > Auto-Receptionist > Call Handling > Custom Rules, and click on Add Custom Rules. Click + Add Rule.

2. Define Your Summer Timeline: Set Date &/Or Time Parameters.

Name your rule (e.g., "Summer Fridays 2026"). Under the conditions, select Date and/or Time. Choose Specific date range to pick the exact calendar dates your summer hours will start and end. You can also define specific weekly recurring ranges.

3. Direct Your Summer Traffic: Call Handling.

Choose how the system handles calls during this period. You can select Announcement and select one of your Announcement-only extensions. Go to that extension and upload a seasonal greeting (e.g., "We're away for our summer holiday...") and send callers to a shared company voicemail box or an on-call manager.

Part 2: The User Version (For Individual Extensions)

If the company hours stay the same, but individual employees are working modified summer shifts or taking vacations, team members can easily manage their own availability in the RingCentral desktop app, mobile app, or their user portal.

Method A: Modifying Personal Work Hours

If an employee is changing their core hours for the summer (like starting an hour earlier everyday to log off early), they can update their profile schedule.

• How to do it (Desktop App): Go to Settings > Phone > Incoming Call Rules. Under Work hours, click the existing schedule to adjust the daily sliders or toggles, then hit Save.
• How to do it (Mobile App): Tap your profile picture in the top left, select Incoming Call rules > After hours, and tap the schedule to modify.

Method B: The "Out of Office" Custom Rule - More information

For summer vacations, employees should use a custom rule rather than changing their daily work hours. This acts as a digital "Do Not Disturb" that automatically expires when they return.

• How to do it: In the RingCentral app or User Portal (My Extension), go to your incoming call rules and click Add Rule, then select Create Custom Rule.
• The Workflow:
  1. Set a Specific date range matching the exact days of the vacation.
  2. Under Call Handling, choose Send to voicemail or Forward the call to a teammate who is covering your accounts.
  3. Upload a temporary voicemail greeting indicating when you will return.

Best Practices & Recommendations

📞 The Voicemail Trick: Never leave clients guessing. When updating summer hours, record a specific seasonal greeting. Instead of "We are closed," use: "Thanks for calling! Our team is currently enjoying our seasonal Summer Friday hours. We will return all messages first thing Monday morning."

• Recommendation for Admins (Use Templates): If you have a large batch of users changing schedules but not the whole company, don't update them one by one. Go to Users > Templates > Call Handling, build a summer template, and apply it globally to specific departments or users in bulk.
• Recommendation for Users (Mind Your Status): If you set a custom rule for a summer holiday, make sure your RingCentral App presence status matches! Switch your status to Out of Office so teammates don't try to internal-transfer calls or team-chat you while you are away. - More information
• Don't Forget the Calendar Reminder: If you choose to manually adjust your Company Business Hours instead of using a date-bound Custom Rule, drop a calendar invite right now for the day after Labor Day to remind yourself to log back in and restore your standard hours!

🌴 Work Hard, Summer Harder

Setting up seasonal schedules doesn't have to be a headache. Taking five minutes to configure your company or user settings today means uninterrupted fun in the sun tomorrow.

If you run into any snags while setting up your rules, or if you've got a clever routing trick we missed, reply to this article! The community is always here to help. Have a fantastic, productive, and restful summer! 🍦✨