Closed dates and holiday closures

Summary

Closed dates are exceptions to your normal weekly opening hours - days the garage is shut for a public holiday, refurbishment week, staff training or any other one-off reason. When you mark a date as closed, the AI receptionist tells callers the garage is closed on that date, the WhatsApp auto-reply fires the closed-message reply, the booking system refuses to offer slots on that date, and the scheduler page greys the date out for staff so it cannot be booked accidentally.

Closures can apply to your whole organisation (every location closed) or to a single workshop site (just that location closed). A holiday-preset import lets you add the year’s UK public holidays in one click.

Prerequisites

• You are signed in as an owner or user with the voice.settings.manage capability for organisation-wide closures.
• For per-location closures, you also need the settings.locations.manage capability.
• For the holiday preset, your organisation country must be set to United Kingdom under Settings > Organisation. Other countries are not yet supported.

Steps

Open the Closed Dates page

1. Navigate to Settings > Voice AI > Closed Dates.
2. The page opens on the Org default view by default - this lists the closures that apply to every location.
3. If you have more than one location, the location selector at the top lets you switch to a single location’s closures.

You can also reach this page from:

• Settings > Locations - the Edit Location dialog has a “Set closed dates for this location” link.
• The scheduler toolbar - the “Manage closed dates” link in the filter bar.
• Settings > Voice AI overview - the “Closed Dates” sub-page card.

Add a single closure

1. On the Closed Dates page, press Add closure.
2. Fill in:
   • Start date - the first day the garage is closed.
   • End date - the last day. For a single-day closure, set this equal to the start date.
   • Reason (optional, max 200 characters) - free text shown to staff in the scheduler and used by the AI when telling callers, e.g. “Christmas Day”, “Bank holiday”, “Staff training”.
3. Press Save.
4. The closure appears in the list. The scheduler page automatically greys out those dates with the reason text shown.

Import the year’s public holidays

1. On the Closed Dates page (Org default view), press Add public holidays for 2026 (the button shows the next year as appropriate).
2. A preview lists the public holidays for the chosen year - currently around eight dates for the UK including New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May bank holidays, Summer bank holiday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
3. Press Import. Each date is added as an organisation-wide closure with the holiday name as the reason.
4. The import is safe to repeat - if a holiday is already in the list, the import skips it rather than adding a duplicate.

If you only want to close some sites for a public holiday, import the org-wide list first then delete the closure from the dates that should stay open at one or more locations - then add the location-specific closures back via the per-location view.

Add a closure for one location only

1. On the Closed Dates page, choose the location in the location selector.
2. Press Add closure and fill in the dates and reason as above.
3. Press Save. The closure now applies to this location only - other locations stay open as normal.

This is the right pattern for things like a refurb week at one site, a single site’s annual leave block, or a one-off reason that does not affect the whole company.

Edit or delete a closure

1. Click the closure row in the list.
2. Edit the dates or reason, then press Save.
3. To delete, press Delete closure and confirm.

Expected Outcome

• The AI receptionist tells callers “we’re closed on {date} for {reason}, can I take a message?” rather than quoting normal opening hours on closed days.
• The WhatsApp auto-reply sends the closed-message template on closure dates even when normal opening hours would say “open”.
• The booking system and the AI’s scheduling tool refuse to offer slots on closure dates - customers booking online or over the phone are told that date is unavailable.
• The scheduler page greys out closed dates with the reason text. Staff cannot drag-and-drop a job onto a closed cell.
• Per-location closures only affect that location. Org-wide closures affect every location.

Troubleshooting

Problem: I added a closure but the booking system still offers slots on that date. Cause: The closure may be set on the wrong scope - org-wide vs a specific location. Fix: Open the closure and check whether the location selector at the top of the Closed Dates page shows Org default or a location name. Re-create at the right scope if needed.

Problem: The “Add public holidays for 2026” button is greyed out. Cause: Public holiday presets are only available when your organisation country is set to United Kingdom. Other countries are not yet supported. Fix: Add closures one at a time using Add closure with the date and reason you need.

Problem: I imported the public holidays twice but only got one set in the list. Cause: The import is intentionally idempotent - it does not add a duplicate row when the same date is already there. Fix: No fix needed - this is the safe behaviour.

Problem: I deleted a location and its per-location closures disappeared. Cause: Deleting a location also deletes any closures scoped to that location, because they no longer have anywhere to apply. Fix: If you want to preserve them, recreate the closures against another location or as org-wide closures.

Permissions

Action	Required capability
View closures	voice.settings.view
Add or edit org-wide closures	voice.settings.manage
Import public holidays	voice.settings.manage
Add or edit per-location closures	settings.locations.manage

Notes

• Closed dates are full-day closures. Reduced-hours days (e.g. “open until 1pm on Christmas Eve”) are not supported in this release - to handle one, mark the date as closed and add a knowledge base entry the AI can quote.
• The temporarily_closed button on the Voice AI overview is a separate feature for ad-hoc multi-day open-ended closures (a snowstorm or a major staff-out day). For planned exceptions like public holidays, use this Closed Dates page.
• All closure changes are recorded in the audit log under the voice.org.closure_* and voice.location.closure_* action codes.
• Closed dates apply to all communication channels - voice calls, WhatsApp, SMS - so a customer messaging the closed site gets the closed-message reply on every channel.