Closed dates, holiday closures and special openings

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 sends the closed-message reply. Online booking 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), to a single workshop site (just that location closed) or to a single bay. You can also open one bay specially on a date it normally does not work. A holiday-preset import lets you add the year’s UK public holidays in one click. The page is titled Closed dates and special openings.

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 bay closures and special openings, you need the settings.access capability. Owners and managers have it by default.
• 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 a date.
2. Leave This date set to Closed.
3. Fill in:
   • Date or date range: pick one day, or the first and last day of the closure.
   • Reason (optional), max 200 characters: free text shown to staff in the scheduler and read aloud by the AI when callers ask, e.g. “Christmas Day”, “Bank holiday”, “Staff training”. Do not put internal details such as staff names here.
4. Press Save.
5. 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 that is 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 a date 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.

Close or open a single bay

1. Press Add a date.
2. Under This date, choose Closed or Open specially.
3. Under Apply to, pick Only one bay, then choose it under Which bay. A special opening always applies to one bay.
4. Pick the date or date range, add a note if you like, and press Save.

A bay closure stops that bay being offered online on those dates. The rest of the business stays open, and staff can still book the bay by hand. A special opening makes the bay bookable on a date it normally does not work, but a closure for the whole business or site still wins. The reason on a bay entry is a note for your team only. The AI and customers never see it. For the full picture, see Set which days a bay is available.

Edit or delete a closure

1. Click the entry in the list.
2. Edit the dates or reason, then press Save. If you change Apply to between a bay and the business or a site, a Move this entry? dialog explains what is added and removed. Press Move the entry to confirm.
3. To delete, remove the entry and confirm with Remove.

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”.
• Online booking, the customer portal and the AI’s scheduling tools 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, a specific location or a single bay. 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 a date 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 skips any date that is already in the list, so it never adds a duplicate. Fix: No fix needed. This is the safe behaviour.

Problem: “Moving a date between a bay and the wider business also needs permission to manage bay settings.” Cause: Moving an entry between a bay and the business needs both the closed-dates permission and the bay-settings permission. Fix: Ask an owner or manager to move it.

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
Add or edit bay closures and special openings	settings.access

Notes

• Closed dates are full-day closures. Reduced-hours days (e.g. “open until 1pm on Christmas Eve”) are not supported. 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.