APS Setup Reference

Everything below is a field on the BDP APS Setup page in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, as shipped today. Fields tied to scheduling capabilities not yet available in production aren’t listed here — this reference only documents what you can actually configure and see take effect.

General Settings

FieldWhat it does
Default Zoom LevelThe zoom level the Gantt opens at.
Default Status FilterA default order-status filter (e.g. “Firm Planned|Released”). Leave blank to show all non-finished orders.
Show Finished OrdersInclude finished production orders on the Gantt.
Refresh Material on LoadRecompute material availability for every visible order each time the Scheduler loads. Turn off on a very large visible range to skip the recompute and rely on the last-known status instead.

Timeline

FieldWhat it does
Timeline Days ForwardDays forward from today the Scheduler loads.
Timeline Days BackwardDays backward from today the Scheduler loads.
Gantt Row HeightRow height in pixels.
Auto Refresh SecondsAuto-refresh interval; 0 disables it.

Capacity Thresholds

FieldWhat it does
Capacity Warning %The utilization at which a work center’s load bar in the Scheduler’s left sidebar turns amber. Default 70. (Takes effect from version 1.0.0.81.)
Capacity Critical %The utilization at which that load bar turns red and shows its OVER badge. Default 90. A value below the warning threshold is raised to it. (Takes effect from version 1.0.0.81.)
MC Capacity RowsWhen on, capacity data sent to the Gantt includes one row per machine center in addition to the existing work-center rows, so the Capacity view can drill into machine-level load. Off by default — measure the added load on a tenant with many machine centers before turning it on. (Available from version 1.0.0.57.)

These two thresholds control the sidebar load bar, not the Capacity view heatmap. The heatmap uses its own fixed four-tier scale at 50% / 80% / 100% — see Capacity Heatmaps and Material Availability. Two settings cannot express a four-tier scale, so the heatmap deliberately keeps fixed tiers and the two signals stay independent.

Before 1.0.0.81 both fields were inert: editable here, but read by nothing, while the sidebar used hardcoded values. Those hardcoded values were 70 and 90 — the same numbers these fields ship with — so wiring them up changed no colors for anyone running defaults. If you had already changed them expecting an effect, that change becomes real when you upgrade.

Scheduling

FieldWhat it does
Frozen Horizon DaysDays from today within which orders can’t be rescheduled by a drag or a finite Accept. 0 disables it.

Sequence Optimizer

FieldWhat it does
Solver EnabledTurns on the SmartFlow Engine (the cloud solver). With this off, only the Quick Optimizer runs.
Solver ModeSaaS (default) uses the publisher-managed endpoint with no credentials to enter; On-Premises lets you point at your own endpoint and function key.
Optimizer Endpoint / Optimizer API KeyOnly shown and editable in On-Premises mode — auto-filled in SaaS mode.
Solver Time Limit (s)Maximum seconds the cloud solver may run on a sequence-optimization pass (10–600).

Objective Weights (Sequence Optimizer)

These three tune the Sequence Optimizer only — see Finite Scheduler Weights below for the separate set that tunes finite scheduling.

FieldWhat it does
Setup Weight0.0–1.0. Higher prioritizes cutting changeover between orders.
Tardiness Weight0.0–1.0. Higher penalizes finishing after the due date more aggressively.
Makespan Weight0.0–1.0. Higher prioritizes finishing the whole order set sooner.

Finite Scheduler Weights

Per-minute penalty weights used by Run Finite Scheduler, separate from the Objective Weights above. Higher means the solver works harder to satisfy that particular goal; 0 restores the built-in default. Most shops are better served letting the Shop Advisor set these from a few plain-language questions than hand-tuning them here.

FieldDefaultWhat it does
Finite Tardiness Weight50How hard the solver works to finish orders by their due date — highest by default so due dates dominate.
Finite Adherence Weight30How strongly operations stay near their originally planned start rather than being pulled earlier — keeps the plan from cramming into the first few days.
Finite Pin Weight60How firmly pinned operations — in-flight work and routing-chain anchors — hold their position.
Finite Calendar Weight20How strongly the solver keeps work inside shift-calendar hours. Soft: work can still run outside hours when capacity genuinely demands it.
Finite Leveling Weight10How strongly the solver compresses the overall schedule span.
Finite Setup Weight40How strongly the solver avoids sequence-dependent changeover — recorded and reported today, not yet minimized in the finite solve. It activates automatically once changeover-aware finite scheduling ships; your saved value doesn’t need to change when it does.
Finite Apply EfficiencyOffWhen on, scales each operation’s run time by its machine center’s (or work center’s) efficiency percentage, matching how standard Business Central’s own routing calculation works — so a resource running below 100% books proportionally more capacity. Off by default (assumes 100% everywhere); turning it on re-baselines your schedule durations.

Concepts behind this feature

If a weight’s name doesn’t map cleanly onto a decision you’d actually make on the shop floor, Measuring a Schedule: OTIF, Tardiness, Utilization, and the Trade-offs and Plan Stability: Frozen Horizons, Nervousness, and When to Reschedule explain the trade-offs these fields exist to express.

Ready to see finite scheduling on your own data?

Support: support@dynamicspro.ca · 416-843-6575

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