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Schedules, Time Zones and Holidays

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • What a schedule is, and what uses it
  • Why every schedule needs a time zone
  • How to exclude holidays
  • How to build SNWR’s schedules

🔁 Quick look back: Last time: Designing Assignment Groups. You learned how to design assignment groups around real teams, with a manager and roles on each group.

1 “The SLA breached on a holiday!”

A London user logs a P3 incident on Christmas Eve.

  • The SLA clock keeps running over Christmas Day.
  • It also counts time in India’s working hours, not London’s.
  • The SLA breaches, even though nobody was meant to be working.

🎯 The problem: SLAs and on-call need to know when people work, where, and which days are holidays.

👉 The fix: build schedules with the right time zone, and exclude holidays.

2 Words to know

Key term: Schedule

A set of working times, like Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 18:00.

Key term: Time zone

The clock a schedule uses, like Asia/Kolkata or Europe/London.

Key term: Holiday schedule

A list of days off, added to a schedule to exclude them.

SLAs use schedules to decide when the clock runs. On-call uses them to know when a team is working.

💡 Good to know: Need a refresher? See Fundamentals › SLA Management › Schedules & Task SLAs.

3 SNWR’s schedules

SNWR's schedules in a table. SNWR India business hours: Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 18:00, time zone Asia/Kolkata, excludes SNWR India holidays, used for P2 to P4 SLAs for India callers. SNWR UK business hours: Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:30, time zone Europe/London, excludes SNWR UK holidays, used for P2 to P4 SLAs for UK callers. SNWR 24x7 Critical Support: every day, all day, no holidays excluded, used for P1 SLAs and on-call.
Figure 1. Three working schedules, each with its own clock.

💡 Good to know: A 24×7 schedule doesn’t need holidays. P1 outages don’t wait for Christmas.

4 How holidays work

  1. Create a schedule with just the holiday dates, like SNWR India holidays.
  2. Open the business-hours schedule.
  3. Add the holiday schedule as a child schedule with type Exclude.
  4. Now those days don’t count as working time.

⚠️ Heads up: Holidays change every year. Put a yearly reminder in the support plan to add next year’s dates.

5 Let’s try it: build SNWR’s schedules

  1. Go to All › System Scheduler › Schedules › Schedules. Click New.
  2. Create SNWR India business hours with time zone Asia/Kolkata. Add an entry: Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 18:00, repeating weekly.
  3. Create SNWR India holidays with two all-day entries, for example Republic Day and Diwali.
  4. Open SNWR India business hours. Add SNWR India holidays as a child schedule of type Exclude.
  5. Create SNWR 24×7 Critical Support with one entry that covers every day, all day. Repeat for the UK schedule if you have time.

6 Quick recap

  • A schedule sets working times for SLAs and on-call
  • Every schedule needs the right time zone
  • Holidays go in their own schedule, added as an Exclude child
  • SNWR has India hours, UK hours and a 24×7 Critical Support schedule
  • Update holidays every year

7 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 Why does the UK schedule need its own time zone? Show answer

So working hours count in UK time, not India time.

2 How do you stop a holiday counting as working time? Show answer

Add a holiday schedule as a child schedule with type Exclude.

3 Which SNWR schedule do P1 SLAs use? Show answer

SNWR 24×7 Critical Support.

4 Name two things that use schedules. Show answer

SLAs and on-call.

Nice work! SNWR’s schedules are ready for SLAs and on-call. 🎉
Next up: ITSM Roles and Personas

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