# Set working hours for patient contact
URL: https://docs.awellhealth.com/docs/administer-and-secure/working-hours

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.awellhealth.com/llms.txt).



Working hours are the times of day when a care flow may contact patients. A step or action due
outside those hours is held and activated once the window opens again. With no window set, nothing
is held.

## Working hours are one window for the whole organization [#working-hours-are-one-window-for-the-whole-organization]

1. Open **Settings**, at the bottom of the left navigation.
2. Open the **General** tab.
3. Under **Working hours**, choose a **Timezone**, then set **From** and **To**.
4. Click **Save**.

The same window applies every day, weekends included. **Clear** removes it, after which activities
activate whenever they fall due.

The timezone is the organization's, not the patient's. A window of 07:00 to 20:00 in
`Europe/Brussels` opens at 07:00 Brussels time for every patient in the organization, wherever they
are.

## What a working-hours window moves [#what-a-working-hours-window-moves]

Working hours apply to steps and actions:

* Due before the window opens: activation moves to that day's opening time.
* Due after the window closes: activation moves to the next day's opening time.
* Due inside the window: activation is unchanged.

Nothing is canceled or skipped; only the activation time moves.

A [Timer](/docs/design-care-flows/the-timer-component) sets the hour of day a step activates in the
patient's timezone. Working hours are applied on top of that, in the organization's timezone, so a
step timed for 06:00 local waits for the window if the window opens later.

While a stakeholder works through a hosted session, an activity due immediately activates straight
away instead of waiting for the window, because the stakeholder is already on the page.

## Activation spreads over the first 10 minutes [#activation-spreads-over-the-first-10-minutes]

Held activities don't all activate at the moment the window opens. Each care flow is assigned a fixed
offset of up to 10 minutes past the opening time, so a night's held activities arrive across the
first 10 minutes of the window.

* A care flow's offset never changes, so it lands in the same slot every day.
* Recomputing the schedule, on a retry for instance, produces the same time.
* Everything held for the same care flow shares that offset, so one patient's overnight messages
  still arrive in one batch rather than trickling in.
* Activation never moves earlier than the opening time, and never past the end of that working day.

The 10-minute window is set by Awell and isn't part of organization settings.

### Example [#example]

An organization sets working hours to 07:00 to 20:00 in `Europe/Brussels`. A care flow schedules a
medication reminder for 03:20. The reminder is held overnight and sent at 07:04, along with anything
else that care flow held. A second patient's care flow, held the same night, sends at 07:09.

A care team watching a worklist sees the held activities appear across those first 10 minutes rather
than in a single block at 07:00.

## Next steps [#next-steps]

**Next:** [Single sign-on](/docs/administer-and-secure/single-sign-on) — how the team signs in
through the organization's own identity provider.