> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.teamfollowup.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

> ## Agent Instructions
> Use the public API base URL: https://api.teamfollowup.ai/api.
> Authenticate public API requests with Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY.
> Use product-owned terms: agents, calls, campaigns, contacts, phone numbers, billing, and configuration.

# The calling window

> Set the hours a campaign is allowed to dial, and choose whether leads that arrive after hours wait for the next opening or get left for your team.

The calling window is the hours a campaign is allowed to dial. There are two ways
to run it: a standard window you set by hand, and AI After Hours, where the AI
only calls in the gaps around your human team.

## The two modes

<Note>
  Mode here means the window, not how you dial. Speed to lead and power dialer
  live in [When and how often](/campaigns/scheduling).
</Note>

| Mode                        | Who it's for          | What it does                                                                                                                  |
| --------------------------- | --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Standard calling window** | Everyone by default   | You pick the days and hours. The campaign dials inside them and holds off outside them.                                       |
| **AI After Hours**          | Teams with human reps | You describe when your humans work. The AI takes the hours they don't, so it fills the gaps instead of stepping on live reps. |

Every campaign starts on Standard. Switch to AI After Hours only when a human team
is doing the calling and you want the AI to cover the off hours.

## Standard calling window

Set the days of the week and a start and end time, like Monday to Friday, 9am to
5pm. A few things worth knowing:

* **Split days are fine.** You can set more than one block on the same day, say
  to skip the lunch hour.
* **Windows can cross midnight.** An overnight window like 10pm to 6am is
  allowed. It just closes the next morning.
* **No window means no limit.** Leave it off and the campaign can dial any hour
  of any day.

If a lead comes in outside your hours, it is not lost. The campaign queues it and
places the call the moment your window next opens, so an after hours signup on a
Friday night is waiting at the front of the line first thing Monday.

## AI After Hours

AI After Hours has one rule: **the AI never calls while your human team is
working.** It only picks up the hours they don't cover.

You give it two things:

1. **Your human rep schedule**, the days and hours your people work, in their
   timezone.
2. **AI calling limits**, the earliest and latest the AI is ever allowed to dial,
   so it never calls someone at 3am.

The AI then works only the **gap** between the two: the time inside your AI limits
that falls outside your team's hours, in each lead's own local time. During your
team's hours the AI stays silent. Outside your AI limits nobody calls at all.

<div style={{ margin: '1.75rem 0' }}>
  <div style={{ display: 'flex', borderRadius: '10px', overflow: 'hidden', fontSize: '13px', textAlign: 'center', border: '1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.25)' }}>
    <div style={{ flex: '1.5', padding: '16px 8px', background: 'rgba(16,102,188,0.18)', color: '#3b93f2' }}>
      6:30am to 8am<br /><strong>AI calls</strong>
    </div>

    <div style={{ flex: '9', padding: '16px 8px', background: 'rgba(128,128,128,0.14)', color: '#9aa0a6' }}>
      8am to 5pm<br />Human reps work<br />(AI stays out)
    </div>

    <div style={{ flex: '5', padding: '16px 8px', background: 'rgba(16,102,188,0.18)', color: '#3b93f2' }}>
      5pm to 10pm<br /><strong>AI calls</strong>
    </div>
  </div>

  <p style={{ fontSize: '12px', color: '#9aa0a6', textAlign: 'center', marginTop: '10px' }}>
    Example: human team 8am to 5pm, AI limits 6:30am to 10pm. The AI works only the two blue gaps. Before 6:30am and after 10pm, no one calls.
  </p>
</div>

<Tip>
  No human team? Turn the human schedule off. The AI then covers your whole
  calling window on the days you pick. This is the simplest way to run a single
  strict window with no human handoff.
</Tip>

## What happens to a lead that arrives outside the window

This is the part that actually matters, and it is the difference between the two
modes. When a fresh lead comes in outside the allowed hours, the campaign does
one of two things:

| Behavior    | What happens to the lead                                             | Used by                    |
| ----------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| **Held**    | The lead waits and gets dialed at the next opening. Nothing is lost. | Standard (default)         |
| **Dropped** | The lead is skipped entirely, no call now and no call later.         | AI After Hours (automatic) |

Why the difference? In AI After Hours, a lead that arrives during your human
team's hours is theirs to handle. If the AI merely held it, it would call that
same person later that evening, after your reps already worked them. So After
Hours drops those leads instead of queuing them, keeping the AI to genuine after
hours work.

<Warning>
  Because AI After Hours drops leads that land outside the window, a lead that
  comes in while your team is working will not get an AI call at all. That is the
  point, but it means your human team has to actually work those leads.
</Warning>

## Whose clock is the window measured in?

By default the window runs on your business timezone, so everyone is dialed on
your clock. Turn on the **contact timezone** setting and the window instead runs
on each contact's own local time. That same setting also tells the AI agent what
time it is for the lead, so it changes more than just the window.

<Card title="Contact timezone, in full" icon="globe" href="/campaigns/timezones">
  How the contact timezone setting works, everywhere it applies, and where the
  timezone comes from.
</Card>

## Where it sits with the rest

The window decides when you are allowed to call. It works alongside the [dial
style and retry cadence](/campaigns/scheduling), which decide how and how often.
Before you flip a campaign live, sanity check all three, see
[Going live](/campaigns/going-live).