Quiet hours and the outreach schedule

Three checks before every step

Each call, text or email must pass three checks. A step outside them waits for the next allowed minute. If no allowed minute comes within 14 days, or the shopper's state is blocked, the step is skipped.

1. The campaign's schedule. The recommended schedule allows 08:00 to 21:00 every day. A custom schedule sets its own days and hours, or Any time of day.
2. The legal floor, which no schedule can widen: the national rule (US federal 08:00 to 21:00; Canada, for calls, weekdays 09:00 to 21:30 and weekends 10:00 to 18:00; Australia's Industry Standard hours for calls), each state's or province's stricter hours, holidays on which outreach is banned, and daily call caps.
3. Under the recommended schedule only, blocked states get no calls or texts at all. Texas is the only one today. Email still goes out.

Some state hour rules are written for prerecorded-message devices. ACR applies them to its AI calls as a precaution.

Where the shopper is

ACR uses the time zone stored on the lead. Without one, it takes the state or province from the shipping address and from the phone's area code, and uses every time zone in them. When the two point to different states, both states' rules apply. Without either, it uses the country (for the US, both the Eastern and Pacific zones), and last of all your store's time zone.

When there are several zones, the time has to be allowed in all of them. Times follow daylight saving in each zone.

Which channels the rules cover

Each rule covers the channels its law names. The US federal window covers calls and texts. Canada's and Australia's rules cover calls only. Most state rules cover calls only; Connecticut, Louisiana, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah cover texts too. WhatsApp counts as a text.

Email follows the campaign's schedule only. Outside the US, Canada and Australia, ACR holds no hour rules, so only the schedule applies.

Daily call caps

Florida, Maryland, Oklahoma and Oregon allow three calls in 24 hours, and Maine one call in 8 hours. When a shopper reaches the cap, the next call waits until the oldest one leaves the window.

Changing the schedule

Under Advanced > Schedule, turn off Use the recommended schedule to set Custom hours: the days, and whole hours From and Until, or Any time of day. A custom schedule can be narrower or wider than 08:00 to 21:00, but the legal floor still applies on top of it.

Under custom hours, Texas gets its own legal hours (Monday to Saturday 09:00 to 21:00, Sunday 12:00 to 21:00) instead of the block. ACR reads Texas law as treating a text as telephone solicitation, which needs a registration certificate from the Texas Secretary of State unless an exemption fits, so switch only once your store has registered or confirmed an exemption.

The Allow contact at night in test runs switch

Each lead has an Allow contact at night in test runs switch. It takes effect only for a test lead in a test run, such as the leads the Test button makes, which have it on. There it skips the campaign schedule and the legal hours; blocked states stay blocked.

On a real shopper it has no effect, because real runs never skip the hours. Changing it needs the admin role, and a real checkout from the same shopper turns it off.