The short answer
A schedule is a calendar. The menu or the extension that uses it holds a pointer to it by name. Most schedule problems are the pointer, not the calendar: the attendant is pointed at the wrong schedule, or at none. Check both before changing either.
Time schedules
The everyday kind: business hours, an early Friday, a lunch break, an on-call window. Each event is a day of the week with a start and an end time. The house standard is one event per day, each named for its day, so that a Friday early close is one row you can read. Lunch is two events on the same day, one before and one after; the gap between them is outside the schedule.
You do not need a schedule per menu. Most companies have two or three: the main hours, a second set for a team that works later, and the holiday calendar.
Holiday schedules
Dated closures, entered as real dates, one year at a time, with the year in the name. The Holiday Schedule every account starts with holds one placeholder event dated 2019 that closes nothing; the real dates are added on top. How the Jewish holidays and a one-day closure are entered is in holidays and closures.
Where a schedule attaches
- Auto attendant. The business-hours schedule is picked at the bottom of the Closed tab; the holiday schedule on the Holiday tab. See auto attendants.
- An extension's features. Call Forwarding Selective, Simultaneous Ring, Sequential Ring, Call Notify, Selective Rejection, and each Office Anywhere number carry their own schedule. See call forwarding.
- Pre-alert announcements on any menu, group, queue or extension.
Hunt groups and call centers have no schedule of their own. A group gets hours by sitting behind a menu, or through Call Forwarding Selective on the group with a schedule. Call Forwarding Always, Busy and No Answer never carry a schedule; once on, they are on around the clock.
Editing
Open Schedules in the portal, open the schedule, edit the rows, save. Everything pointed at that schedule follows the change the next time a call arrives. The two default schedules keep their names and cannot be deleted. There is no way to pause one event and keep it; delete the row or move its dates.