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The Contact Center app of Apptivo allows you to send predefined messages to your incoming calls or text messages when your office is closed or your team is unavailable. This can be configured using a feature called Vacation Responder. Let’s go through the steps to configure it for both incoming calls and SMS.

Steps to configure Vacation Responder

Log into your Apptivo account and navigate to the Contact Center app. Here, select Settings from the App Header.
Go to SMS → Vacation Responder from the left navigation panel. The Vacation Responder page comes into view.

Here, you can configure the Vacation Responder for both incoming text messages and calls.

Vacation Auto Reply - SMS: Send automatic text messages to contacts/customers during vacation or when your employees are unavailable.
Auto Answer - Calls: Reply with automatic voice messages for your incoming calls when your employees are unavailable to answer or during vacation.

Steps to configure Vacation Auto Reply - SMS

Enable the toggle for Vacation Auto Reply - SMS to configure sending automatic text messages when your agents are not available.

Once the toggle is enabled, add the required criteria upon which the Autoresponder should work.

Repeats - Set the frequency for the Vacation Auto Reply - SMS. You can configure it to be None, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly.
Starts - Select the date from when the Autoresponder must work.
Ends - Select the end date for the Autoresponder.
Start Time - Choose the time from which the Autoresponder must be activated.
End Time - Choose the time till which the Autoresponder must operate.
Preview - This field will give an overview of the configured time and date.
Message - Add the message that should be sent as a reply for incoming SMS during the vacation period.
Prefix - The text added in the field will be appended to the message sent to the customer. This is to inform the customer/contact that the message is a Vacation Responder.

Repeats

The Repeats is configured as None by default. Hence, the repeat is turned off. By clicking the dropdown, the Repeats can be customized to be Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly.

Repeat Daily

When the Repeats is selected as Daily, the Autoresponder will work every day based on the selected criteria.

Here, the configuration can be configured based on the Ends field. You can set the Autoresponder to work always, end after certain times, or end on a particular date.
When Never is selected, then the Vacation Responder will be activated every day based on the configured time period.

When After is selected, then the Vacation Responder will be activated for the configured number of times. This can be customized in the Occurrences field. For instance, if the occurrence is 5, then the feature will work for 5 days from the configured start date. You can configure a maximum of 100 occurrences.

When On is selected, then the Vacation Responder will work every day based on the criteria till the selected end date.

Repeat Weekly

When the Repeats is selected as Weekly, the Autoresponder will be activated on the selected day of the week based on the configured criteria. You can select more than one week at a time.

When Never is selected, then the Vacation Responder will be activated every selected day of the week based on the configured time period.
When After is selected, then the Vacation Responder will be activated for the configured number of times. You can configure a maximum of 100 occurrences.
When On is selected, then the Vacation Responder will work on every chosen day of the week till the selected end date.

Repeat Monthly

When the Repeats is selected as Monthly, the Autoresponder will be activated on the selected day or date of the month based on the configured criteria.

As soon as Monthly is selected from the dropdown in the Repeats field, the Repeats On field comes into view. Here, you can configure the repeat to be a day of the month or date of the month.

Once the Repeat is selected, you can select the Start date and customize the end period.
When Never is selected, then the Vacation Responder will be activated every selected day of the week based on the configured time period.
When After is selected, then the Vacation Responder will be activated only for the configured number of times. You can configure a maximum of 50 occurrences.
When On is selected, then the Vacation Responder will work on every chosen day of the week till the selected end date.

Repeat Yearly

When the Repeats is selected as Yearly, the Autoresponder will work on the selected date of the month in a year based on the configured criteria. For instance, when the repeat is selected as Jan 25 between 8 AM and 8 PM, then the configured text message will be sent as a reply for incoming messages on Jan 25 between 8 AM and 8 PM every year till the chosen end period.

Once the Repeat is selected, you can select the Start date and customize the end period.
When Never is selected, then the Vacation Responder will function on the selected date of the month in a year based on the configured time period.
When After is selected, then the Vacation Responder will be activated only for the configured number of times. Here, you can choose a maximum of 4 occurrences.
When On is selected, then the Vacation Responder will work on the selected date of the month in a year till the selected end date.