What you'll achieve
Your customers message you at 11pm, on Sunday, or from a timezone eight hours ahead — and your team is asleep. Right now that message sits unanswered until morning, and in that gap a customer can buy from a competitor, cancel a booking, or turn a small question into a complaint. After-hours support isn't a nice-to-have anymore; it's what customers expect.
This guide shows you how to set up Out-of-Office (OOO) engagement in Wati so every message received outside your working hours gets an instant, human-sounding reply that says when a real agent will follow up — and, for the simple stuff, lets customers help themselves right away instead of waiting.
By the end of this guide, you'll be able to:
Reply to every after-hours message within seconds, with clear expectations about when your team returns
Let customers check an order, book an appointment, or find an FAQ answer overnight without an agent
Keep evenings, weekends, and holidays covered without asking anyone to work them
Walk into a clean, pre-qualified inbox the next morning instead of a pile of cold, unanswered chats
The short version
To set up Out-of-Office engagement in Wati:
Go to Automations → Rules and switch the pre-built WA Out of Office Rule from Off to On.
Click Working hours setting and set the days and hours you're open.
Under Automations → Reply Materials, edit the WA Out of Office message so it sounds like you.
Message your business number from your phone outside working hours and confirm the reply arrives.
That's the whole setup. The rule, its trigger, and a default message all ship with your account and cost you nothing — you're switching it on, setting your hours, and making the copy yours.
Optionally, once that's live, you can create a custom rule to trigger a chatbot or your Astra AI agent for after-hours FAQs, order lookups, and appointment booking. That's covered in Step 4, and unlike the built-in rule it's counted under your automation triggers cost.
Continue reading for detailed setup instructions and strategic best practices.
When to use this guide
Use this if:
You're a support, sales, or operations team that receives messages in the evenings, on weekends, or from customers in other time zones
You want customers to get an immediate acknowledgement instead of silence, plus a clear "we'll reply by X" promise
Your most common after-hours questions are repetitive and self-servable — order status, appointment booking, pricing, opening hours
You want your team to review and pick up after-hours conversations the next morning, already triaged
Do NOT use this if:
You want to automate replies during business hours instead of outside business hours.
You need advanced automation that responds differently based on complex conditions or customer data.
You want customers to speak directly with a live agent instead of receiving an automated response.
You don't have defined business hours or an after-hours support schedule to communicate to customers.
Limitations
Read these before you invest setup time:
Read these before you invest setup time. The built-in Out of Office rule is free and takes two clicks - but it is deliberately simple, and these are the edges of it:
It ships switched off. Both WA Out of Office Rule and WA Welcome Message Rule arrive set to Off. Nothing sends until you toggle one on.
You can edit the message, not the logic. Message content is yours to change. Triggers and filters can't be edited, and built-in rules can't be deleted. Anything beyond new copy means building a custom rule.
One message for every closure. The built-in rule sends a single message, so a Tuesday night and a public holiday get identical wording unless you edit the copy or add a custom rule.
It fires on new chats only. The built-in OOO rule triggers when a contact initiates a new chat, not on every follow-up message inside an ongoing conversation.
Custom keyword rules take precedence. If a keyword rule you've built matches the incoming message, the built-in OOO rule doesn't fire for that message.
Custom rules cost money. The two built-in rules are free. Any custom rule you create is counted under your automation triggers cost and bills on usage.
Audio files can't be used in reply materials. Text, documents, images, videos, stickers, chatbots, Astra AI agents, sequences, and templates are supported.
Before you begin
Estimated setup time: 10–15 minutes to switch on and personalize the built-in rule (add 15–20 minutes if you're also building a self-service chatbot)
Access: an admin or owner login to the Wati Team Inbox, with permission to view Automations → Rules
A connected WhatsApp channel that's live and receiving messages
Your correct account timezone — every working-hours calculation depends on it
Your actual business hours, day by day, including which days are closed
Your after-hours message copy, ideally approved by whoever owns customer tone. You don't need to create a Reply Material first — the built-in rule already has a message you can edit
A published chatbot (optional) if you want customers to check orders or book appointments overnight
Recommended reading: Understanding rule-based automation in Wati
Key concepts
Working Hours
The days and times your team is available, configured per day of the week. Wati compares every incoming message's timestamp against these hours to decide whether you're open or closed.
Out of Office (OOO) Rule
The built-in automation rule that sends an automatic reply when a contact starts a new chat outside your working hours. Its counterpart, the WA Welcome Message Rule, covers new chats inside working hours. Both are pre-configured in your account and free to use.
Built-in rule vs. custom rule
Built-in rules arrive ready-made: you can rewrite their message, but not their triggers or filters, and you can't delete them. They're free. Custom rules are ones you build yourself with full control over triggers, conditions, and actions — and they're counted under your automation triggers cost.
Automation triggers cost
The usage-based charge that applies each time one of your custom rules fires. The two built-in rules don't draw on it, which is why the free setup in this guide stops at Step 3.
Reply Material
A predefined, reusable response saved in your library — text, image, document, video, sticker, chatbot, sequence, or template. Automations send Reply Materials rather than ad-hoc text. The built-in OOO rule already points at one called WA Out of Office, which is the message you edit in Step 3.
Keyword-Based Rule
A custom rule that inspects the words in an incoming message and responds accordingly, using Fuzzy matching, Exactly matches, or Contains. This is what turns a generic "we're closed" into a genuinely useful after-hours answer — and it's the optional, chargeable part of this guide.
Astra AI agent
Wati's AI agent, which can hold a real conversation instead of following a fixed menu — answering FAQs, handling follow-up questions, and escalating when it can't help. You can hand an after-hours conversation to it from a custom rule's actions.
How it works
Customer starts a new chat at 10:45pm
↓
Wati checks the timestamp against your Working Hours
↓
Outside working hours
↓
Does a custom keyword rule match? ──Yes──▶ Your custom rule runs
(only if you built one in Step 4) send reply / start chatbot /
│ hand to Astra AI agent /
No route to a team
↓
WA Out of Office Rule sends your WA Out of Office message ← the free, built-in path
↓
Conversation waits in Team Inbox for the morning review
Wati compares the message timestamp against your working hours on every inbound message.
If you've built custom keyword rules, they're evaluated first — a match means the customer gets a specific answer instead of the generic closed message.
With no custom rules in play, every after-hours chat takes the straight path: the built-in rule sends your message. This is the complete flow for most businesses.
Deeper self-service — order lookups, appointment booking, conversational FAQs — happens on the custom branch, where a chatbot or your Astra AI agent resolves the request before anyone reads the chat.
Either way, every enversation still lands in your Team Inbox, so your team picks up where the automation left off the next morning.
Step-by-step setup
You don't build this from scratch. Wati ships two built-in automation rules — WA Out of Office Rule and WA Welcome Message Rule — already wired up in your account, complete with a default message. Both arrive switched Off, so your real job is Step 1: turn one on. Everything after that is making it sound like your business.
Step 1. Switch on the built-in Out of Office rule
Goal
Activate the after-hours auto-reply that's already sitting in your account, waiting.
Steps
Log in to the Wati Team Inbox and open Automations.
Click Rules.
Find WA Out of Office Rule in the list — it's pre-configured, not something you create.
Toggle its status from Off to On.
Result
The rule is live and free to use. Its trigger is already set: it fires when a contact initiates a new chat, the timestamp falls outside your working hours, and no keyword rule matches the message.
Step 2. Set the working hours the rule fires against
Goal
Tell Wati when you're open, so it knows which messages count as after-hours.
Steps
From the same Rules screen, click Working hours setting.
Choose the days and hours you're available — for example Monday–Friday, 09:00–17:00, with Sunday closed.
Add only one row per day. If you enter two rows for the same day, only the last one is applied.
Check that your account timezone is correct — every calculation depends on it.
If you're closing for a public holiday, tick Holiday Mode to mark your status as unavailable.
Click Save.
Result
Wati now classifies every incoming message as in-hours or out-of-hours, and your newly enabled rule has something concrete to trigger against.
Step 3. Make the built-in message sound like you
Goal
Replace the generic default copy with your own words, hours, and self-service options.
Steps
Under Automations, open Reply Materials.
Find the existing WA Out of Office material — this is the message the built-in rule already sends. Editing it in place is the quickest route, because the rule is pointed at it.
Rewrite the content to cover three things: an acknowledgement, exactly when you'll reply, and what the customer can do right now. For example: "Thanks for reaching out! Our team is offline right now. We're back Monday to Friday, 09:00–18:00, and we'll reply then. Reply 1 to track an order or 2 to book a slot."
Click Save.
Prefer to keep the original? Create a new text reply material instead, then open the WA Out of Office Rule and select your new material in its Actions section (Action Type: Send Message, Message Type: Text, message chosen from your library).
Result
Customers get your voice instead of boilerplate. Message content is the only thing you can change on a built-in rule — its triggers and filters can't be edited, and the rule can't be deleted. If you need different logic, create a custom rule instead (custom rules are charged based on usage).
Step 4 (optional). Go further with a custom rule
This step is optional.
Use this when a simple after-hours message isn't enough, and you want to collect details from customers, book appointments or demos or find answers on their own while your team is offline.
Goal
Move beyond one static reply — answer FAQs, look up an order, book an appointment, or apply your own logic to which after-hours messages get which response.
Before you commit: this one isn't free
The built-in WA Out of Office Rule costs you nothing. A custom rule does: it's counted under your automation triggers cost and bills on usage. If a plain after-hours acknowledgement does the job for your business, stay with Steps 1–3 and skip this entirely.
Steps
Go to Automations → Rules and click Create Rules in the top-right corner.
Select the trigger New WhatsApp message is received.
Give the rule a descriptive name, such as
After hours – order status.
Add your conditions. A keyword filter — Incoming message matches keyword(s) — is the most common: use Fuzzy matching for typo-prone terms like order, tracking, delivary; Exactly matches for menu-style replies such as 1, 2, BOOK; Contains for phrases such as where is my order. Pair it with a working-hours condition to keep the rule after-hours only.
In the Actions section, choose what happens. Beyond sending a reply material, you can start a chatbot for structured flows like order lookups and appointment booking, hand the conversation to your Astra AI agent to answer FAQs conversationally, or route the chat to a specific agent or team for the morning.
Toggle the rule On and click Save changes.
Repeat for your top three to five after-hours questions.
Result
Your most common night-time requests get resolved on the spot instead of queued, and only genuinely complex conversations wait for a human. Keep in mind that a matching keyword rule takes precedence over the built-in OOO rule — the customer gets your specific answer instead of the generic closed message, which is exactly what you want.
Step 5. Test it end to end
Goal
Confirm the whole flow behaves the way your customers will experience it.
Steps
Wait until you're outside your configured working hours (or temporarily narrow your hours to test immediately — remember to change them back).
From a personal WhatsApp number that has no existing chat with you, message your business number.
Confirm the OOO reply arrives, and that the wording and promised response time are correct.
Send one of your keyword terms and confirm the keyword rule or chatbot takes over instead of the generic message.
Open your Team Inbox and confirm the conversation is there, ready for the morning.
Result
You've verified both the fallback and the self-service paths, from the customer's side.
Confirm it's working
Send a test WhatsApp message to your business number from your personal phone, outside your working hours, as a brand-new chat.
You should see, within seconds:
Your out-of-office reply land in the customer's chat 🎉
Your own words, not the default copy — with the hours and response time you set
The conversation and a contact profile waiting in your Team Inbox for the next morning's review
No repeat auto-reply if you send several messages in a row — the 30-minute throttle is doing its job
If all looks good, your after-hours coverage is live. That's the free, built-in setup working exactly as intended.
Built the optional custom rule in Step 4?
Test it separately: send one of your keyword terms as a new chat outside working hours, and confirm your chatbot or Astra AI agent takes over instead of the generic closed message. A keyword match should replace the OOO reply, not arrive alongside it.
Pro tips for success
Don't ship the default copy. The built-in message exists so the rule works the second you enable it, not because it's right for your business. Rewriting it in Reply Materials takes five minutes and is the highest-return edit in this entire guide.
Promise a time, not a feeling. "We'll reply by 10am tomorrow" beats "we'll get back to you soon." A specific timeframe is what stops a customer from messaging a competitor while they wait — and it's the single easiest edit to your copy.
Keep it short and human. Aim for roughly 100–250 characters, in warm conversational language, and steer clear of stiff phrases like "Your inquiry is important to us." Short messages read cleanly on a phone lock screen; robotic ones erode the trust the auto-reply was meant to build.
Give them somewhere to go, even with the free setup. You don't need a custom rule to be useful overnight. Put a tracking link, FAQ page, or booking URL directly in your OOO copy. Save the "Reply 1 to track your order" style menu for when you've actually built the custom rule to handle those replies — a menu with nothing listening behind it is worse than no menu at all.
Say it's a bot, then offer the human escape hatch. Nothing labels an automated reply for you, so write the disclosure into your own copy and always tell customers how to reach a person. Customers forgive a bot; they don't forgive feeling tricked by one.
Cover the holiday case deliberately. Tick Holiday Mode so the closure registers, then edit your WA Out of Office material to name the dates you're closed. A generic "outside business hours" message on a public holiday reads as careless.
Audit the overnight queue every morning. Read what the automation caught and what it missed. Most misses are fixed for free by sharpening your OOO copy; only the questions that recur in real volume are worth the trigger cost of a custom rule. Let the queue tell you when to spend.
Refresh the copy monthly. Seasonal hours, promotions, and product changes date your message fast, and a stale auto-reply is worse than none.
Troubleshooting
Why isn't my out-of-office message sending?
Possible causes
The WA Out of Office Rule is still switched off — built-in rules default to Off
Your account timezone is wrong, so Wati thinks you're open
You added multiple working-hours rows for the same day, and only the last record applied
The customer was continuing an existing chat rather than initiating a new one
A custom keyword rule matched the message and took precedence
The 30-minute per-conversation throttle had already sent a reply
Resolution
Go to Automations → Rules and confirm the WA Out of Office Rule status is On — this is the most common cause by far.
Check your account timezone, then click Working hours setting and confirm one clean row per day.
Test from a number with no prior conversation history, as a brand-new chat.
If you built the optional custom rule, review it for an unintentionally broad Contains or Fuzzy matching term.
Why can't I change the rule's trigger, conditions, or timing?
Possible causes
You're editing a built-in rule, where message content is the only editable part
You're trying to delete a built-in rule, which isn't possible
Resolution
Edit the message in Automations → Reply Materials — that part is fully yours.
For anything else (different timing, extra conditions, multiple actions), create a custom rule alongside it and leave the built-in one on as your catch-all.
Weigh the cost first: built-in rules are free, custom rules count under your automation triggers cost.
Why are we being charged for out-of-office automation?
Possible causes
The charges are coming from a custom rule, not the built-in OOO rule
Welcome or OOO messages are being sent through the legacy Default Action path, which is chargeable
Resolution
Confirm your after-hours reply is coming from the built-in WA Out of Office Rule — that rule is free to use.
Review any custom rules you've created; each one is counted under your automation triggers cost and bills on usage.
If you're still on the legacy Default Action setup for welcome or OOO messages, move to the built-in rule instead.
Keep only the custom rules whose resolution volume justifies the spend, and switch off the rest.
Will customers know we're closed for a holiday, not just after hours?
Possible causes
Holiday Mode was never enabled, so the day still counts as a working day
Holiday Mode is enabled, but the OOO rule sends your one standard message, which only mentions business hours
Resolution
Open Working hours setting and tick the Holiday Mode checkbox for the closure (availability varies by plan).
Name the closure dates in your WA Out of Office material ahead of a known holiday period — the simplest fix, free, and it needs no new rule.
If you want genuinely different holiday wording sent automatically, that's a custom rule with its own conditions (charged under automation triggers).
Can we send a different message for a regular night versus a holiday closure?
Possible causes
The built-in OOO rule sends one message, and its triggers and filters can't be edited
Resolution
Keep the built-in rule for ordinary evenings and weekends.
Edit the WA Out of Office material in Reply Materials before and after the holiday — no extra cost, but it's a manual step someone has to own.
For a hands-off version, create a custom rule for holiday coverage with its own message and conditions (charged under automation triggers).
What happens if the customer replies to the OOO message with a new question?
Possible causes
Expecting a second automated reply — the built-in rule fires when a contact initiates a new chat, and the 30-minute throttle suppresses repeats
Resolution
Expect no second generic reply; the conversation simply waits in the Team Inbox.
Set expectations in your OOO copy so the silence isn't a surprise — "we've got your message and we'll reply at 9am" covers follow-ups too.
If follow-up questions are frequent and repetitive, that's the case for the optional custom rule: give your top questions a real answer via chatbot or Astra AI agent (charged under automation triggers).
If we enable an out-of-office chatbot, do customers know they're talking to a bot?
Possible causes
Assuming Wati labels automated replies automatically — it doesn't
Resolution
Write the disclosure into your WA Out of Office material, or into the chatbot's or Astra AI agent's first message — for example "You're chatting with our automated assistant."
Include a clear route to a human, such as "Reply AGENT and our team will call you back at 9am."
Keep bot menus to a handful of options so customers reach an answer or a person quickly.
Does turning on the OOO rule mean agents stop getting notified?
Possible causes
Assuming the auto-reply replaces the conversation rather than adding to it
Resolution
The OOO reply is additive — the conversation still arrives in your Team Inbox with its contact profile, and your normal assignment and notification behaviour is unchanged.
Confirm with a live test: send an after-hours message and check that the conversation appears in the inbox alongside the automated reply.
Want after-hours chats routed to a specific team automatically? The built-in rule can't do that, since its actions can't be edited — you'd add a custom rule with a routing action (charged under automation triggers).
Why is the wrong automated message going out?
Possible causes
The WA Welcome Message Rule is firing because Wati considers the message in-hours
You enabled the built-in rule but never edited its default message content
An overly broad custom keyword rule is intercepting messages meant for the OOO rule
Resolution
Check which rule matched, then verify your working hours and timezone.
Open Automations → Reply Materials and confirm the WA Out of Office content says what you intend.
Tighten broad keyword filters on any custom rules — switch Contains to Exactly matches where you can.
🚀 What's next
You've covered the hours you're closed. Now cover the hours you're open — with the same two clicks and the same zero cost.
Go back to Automations → Rules and switch on the WA Welcome Message Rule, the built-in counterpart that greets customers who message you during working hours. It's the other half of the pair you enabled in Step 1, it's free, and it means every first message to your business gets acknowledged in seconds no matter when it arrives.