ABS Horizons and Long-Range Appointments
You do not have to use the ABS to schedule activities that are far into the future, such as 6 months ahead. Some companies schedule preventive maintenance activities months ahead of time. The activities are automatically scheduled when they are loaded into the ABS if an ABS horizon exists.
For example, today is March 1st, and the ABS horizon is 14 days. You can set a preventive maintenance activity for May 1st. (Earliest Start is May 1st 9:00 A.M. Latest Start is May 1st 12:00 P.M.) This activity remains unscheduled until April 17th. When the ABS is reloaded that evening, the ABS queries and finds the activity. Because the activity is unscheduled, the ABS attempts to automatically schedule it by using the Earliest Start and Latest Start values.
You might want to use the ABS to schedule long-range appointments when you think that maximum capacity is near, and you are concerned about overbooking.