How does staff availability work?

Staff availability tells Simple Chat whether a given team member is available or unavailable to take live conversations. The AI and inbox experience use that signal together with your store’s business hours so customers get realistic expectations about human help.

Availability is per person—not a single store-wide on/off switch—so one agent can be away while others remain available.

Setting your status

Each staff member can set an availability status:

• Available — you can receive handoffs and work the inbox as normal
• Unavailable — you are not taking new live work (meetings, breaks, end of shift)

You can also apply a temporary override when you need to step away briefly without changing your long-term default.

How this connects to business hours

Availability integrates with business hours configured in General settings. Simple Chat combines:

• Whether staff are marked available right now
• Whether the store is inside defined business hours

The AI uses that combined picture to set appropriate expectations with customers—for example, clarifying that a human will join during open hours, or that only automated help is available right now.

Exact wording depends on your merchant instructions and conversation state; the goal is fewer surprises about when a person will respond.

Practical workflow for teams

1. Set unavailable when you are off shift or in focused work—customers and routing logic reflect that you are not on deck.
2. Set available when you are actively monitoring the inbox.
3. Use temporary override for short absences instead of toggling your default repeatedly.
4. Keep business hours accurate in General settings so after-hours messaging stays aligned with reality.

Availability vs viewing a conversation

Seeing a conversation in the dashboard (real-time presence) is separate from your availability flag. Presence helps avoid duplicate replies; availability helps the system and AI communicate whether live staff support is realistically on offer.