Operation duration can be calculated using “Planned Days” instead of Planned Runtime fitting into resource availability. However, DMS will incorporate both values in scheduling the activity. For example, suppose you have an operation that requires 10 hours of work but has an elapsed time (duration) of 4 days. The operation Runtime value would be entered as 10 and the Planned Days would be entered as 4. The DMS scheduler then evenly divides the hours for each day (2.5 hours per day) or if the resource is constrained during some of the time DMS will fit the hours where it can. This feature can also be used for selecting how many resources you want to put on an operation. For example if you have 100 hours of resource capacity in a day and a 75 hour operation requiring 25 hours a day you can put in 75 hours of Runtime and 3 “Planned Days”.    

An example of using planned days is as follows; suppose a painting operation takes 3 days from start to finish and a total of 6 hours of labor time is required. Suppose the capacity of your labor resource is 8 hours in a day. DMS will schedule to a duration of 3 days and consume 2 hours of capacity per day from the labor resource.