A Holiday Did Not Reduce Capacity: Causes and Fixes

When a holiday you added leaves capacity untouched, the cause is almost always a holiday added after the last scheduling run, the wrong holiday level, or a capacity override holding the day open. EDGEBIC by User Solutions blocks a day from scheduling when the calendar says the work center is closed, but the existing plan reflects the calendar as it was at the last run, and holidays come in three scopes that block different things.

The controls you use to diagnose this are the holiday record, the anomaly report, and the capacity view. This post is the detailed version of the holiday-capacity symptom in the EDGEBIC troubleshooting guide. For the inverse symptom, where a job landed on a holiday, read job scheduled on a holiday. For setup, how to add a plant holiday covers the plant level.

The Three Closure Levels Block Different Things

EDGEBIC's engine resolves closures at three scopes, and knowing which one you actually used is half the diagnosis.

Two consequences for this symptom. A partial-day plant holiday reduces only the hours where its window overlaps each shift, not the whole day, so a small window looks like almost no effect and is working correctly. And because the narrower scopes are overrides rather than holiday records, "my holiday did not reduce capacity" is sometimes really "I was looking for a holiday record that was never the right tool." The calendar setup guide covers both routes.

Cause 1: The Holiday Was Added After the Last Run

The existing schedule was built against the calendar as it stood at the last scheduling run. Adding a holiday afterward changes the calendar but does not touch the already-committed plan, so work stays booked on the holiday until you reschedule. This is the single most common reason a holiday appears to do nothing.

How to tell: the anomaly report flags bookings that fall on a holiday, and the presence of those rows on the new holiday's date confirms the plan predates the holiday. If you have not rescheduled since adding it, this is the cause.

Fix: reschedule the affected jobs. The engine skips the holiday and moves the work off the day. If work still lands there after a clean reschedule, check the level and flags below.

Cause 2: The Closure Is Narrower Than You Intended

If you zeroed one machine's capacity expecting a plant-wide closure, the narrow reach explains why the rest of the plant still shows hours. An override closes one work center on one shift on one date and nothing else, so a plant with six machines running two shifts needs twelve entries to go fully dark, which is exactly why the plant holiday exists.

How to tell: open the per-day capacity view for a machine that is still showing hours on the date. If it carries no overridden flag, nothing closed it.

Fix: if you meant to close the whole plant, delete the overrides and add a single plant holiday instead. If you genuinely meant one machine or one crew, the rest of the plant staying open is correct behavior, and the thing to check is whether you covered every affected work center and both of its shifts. Blocking a machine for a maintenance day covers the single-machine case and closing one shift covers the crew case.

Cause 3: The Holiday Is Inactive or Partial-Day

A holiday only takes effect when it is marked active, and a partial-day holiday reduces only the overlapping hours rather than closing the day. An inactive holiday is ignored entirely, and a partial-day holiday set to a small window trims only a little capacity, which can look like no effect.

How to tell: read the active flag and the whole-day flag on the holiday. An inactive holiday does nothing; a partial-day one reduces only its window's overlap with the shift.

Fix: activate the holiday, and set it to apply to the whole day if you intended a full closure. If a partial holiday is correct, the reduced-but-not-zero capacity is the expected result, and if that reduction looks too large or too small, a partial holiday that cut too much or too little capacity walks the arithmetic behind it. Scheduling a half-day holiday covers the partial case.

Cause 4: A Capacity Override Is Holding the Day Open

A daily capacity override sets the available hours for a specific machine, shift, and date directly, and it takes priority over the shift formula and over holidays. An override left in place, such as an approved overtime day, keeps that cell open even when a holiday would otherwise close it.

How to tell: open the capacity view for the machine and date. An override shows the day carrying hours in a distinct color, and it wins over the holiday.

Fix: if the day should be closed, reset the cell to the shift default, which removes the override, then reschedule. If the override was deliberate, the open day is intended and the holiday is correctly deferring to the planner's chosen hours. Overriding capacity for one day covers the override, and reading a red day on the capacity view shows how closed and overridden days appear.

A Note on Recurring Holidays

A recurring holiday fires on the month and day of its reference date every year, and only the month and day matter; the year is ignored. A reference date with the wrong month or day fires on the wrong calendar date every year, so a recurring holiday that reduces capacity on the wrong day, or not on the day you expect, usually has a misconfigured reference date.

How to Diagnose an Ineffective Holiday, in Order

1. Reschedule the affected jobs. A holiday added after the last run does nothing to the existing plan until you rerun.
2. Check you used the right tool for the reach. A plant holiday for the whole site; per-day overrides for one shift or one machine.
3. Check the active and whole-day flags. Inactive does nothing; partial-day trims only the overlap.
4. Check for a daily capacity override on any cell the holiday should close.
5. For a recurring holiday, verify the reference month and day, since only those two fields drive the recurrence.

Prevention

• Reschedule after any calendar change. The plan reflects the calendar at the last run, so a new holiday only takes effect on the next reschedule.
• Match the tool to the reach. A plant shutdown is a plant holiday; a single machine's teardown is a per-day capacity override of zero; picking deliberately avoids both the too-wide and the too-narrow surprise.
• Clear stale overrides before a closure. An old overtime override silently holds a day open against a holiday, so review overrides on the dates you close.
• Run the anomaly report after adding holidays. The off-calendar checks flag any booking that survived on a holiday, so you catch a missed reschedule or a narrow scope before the floor does. If a whole machine shows no capacity when it should have some, capacity shows zero for a work center covers that, and shift and calendar mistakes covers the common calendar slips.