Spoke can be configured to prevent volunteers from sending texts earlier or later than configurable start and end times.
Texting hours configuration applies at the organization level. All of the organization's campaigns have the same configuration.
Spoke will present the following page during organization creation. It is also accessible from the Settings link on the left menu when logged in as an Admin.
Toggle "Enforce texting hours?" to turn enforcement on and off. Click "Change Texting Hours" to adjust the start and end times.
This configuration is stored in the organization table in the database.
Spoke will not send texts to contacts before the start time or after the end time.
How the current time is determined for a particular contact depends on other aspects of Spoke's configuration.
If the TZ environment variable is set, Spoke will assume that all contacts are located in the time zone specified by the variable. The current time in that time zone -- with Daylight Savings applied if it is summer in that area and the time zone has Daylight Savings Time -- is considered the current time for purposes of deciding whether it is OK to send texts.
The timezone in New York City is specified by the string America/New_York. Other time zone names are listed here.
If the TZ environment variable is not set, Spoke will infer a time zone for each contact from the contact's ZIP code.
If a contact does not have a ZIP code, Spoke will assume the contact is in New York City and use the local time there to determine if it's OK to send texts.
If spoke is using ZIP codes to infer a contact's time zone, by default it will assume Daylight Savings Time is in effect in that time zone if Daylight Savings Time is in effect in New York City. To use a different location to determine whether Daylight Savings Time is, or is not, in effect, change the environment variable DST_REFERENCE_TIMEZONE.
Note: The default configuration is suitable for all locations in the United States that use Daylight Savings Time. DST_REFERENCE_TIMEZONE may need to change if a Spoke deployment is being used outside the United States because other countries may change their clocks on different schedules. Daylight Savings Time is in effect during the summer, so it is especially important to change DST_REFERENCE_TIMEZONE if a Spoke deployment is being used in the southern hemisphere.