The Skip Shifts if Unavailable command enables DMS to schedule around shifts if capacity in those shifts is not available. Otherwise DMS will look for a block of contiguous time for the operation to run. For example, suppose you have 100 hours of labor capacity for a department on Shift 1 but only 50 hours of labor capacity on Shift 2 and only 25 hours of labor capacity on Shift 3. This would imply that not all jobs started on Shift 1 will be able to be worked on in Shift 2 and 3. Therefore if the Skip Shifts if Unavailable feature is checked DMS knows that it can start a job on Shift 1 and Skip Shifts 2 and 3 and than continue to scheduler again on Shift 1 of the following day.

The Shifts Skip if Unavailable option works in conjunction with the Skip Shifts command and allows you to select which shifts specifically can be skipped or you can leave it blank or select all for all shifts.