Production 10 min read

Calendar Capacity Planning & Job Scheduling

A complete reference for shop owners managing one or more presses. Covers daily capacity limits, per-press budgets, drag-and-drop scheduling, how job duration is estimated, and how to use the Smart Scheduler to fill your week automatically — without overbooking.

Section 1

The two-layer capacity system

Global day limits + per-press minute budgets

Kontraktr™ tracks capacity at two levels simultaneously. Understanding both helps you avoid the most common scheduling mistake: a day that looks open on the calendar but is already maxed out on your main press.

Layer 1 — Global day limits (shop-wide)

Every production day has two shop-wide caps that apply across all presses combined:

Max jobs per day

Default: 8 jobs. Counts every scheduled job regardless of press.

Max pieces per day

Default: 2,000 garments. Prevents accidentally stacking multiple 500-piece runs on the same day.

2,000

Change both limits anytime in Settings → Scheduler. A high-volume shop with multiple presses might raise the job cap to 16 and pieces to 5,000. A one-press shop might lower jobs to 4 and pieces to 500.

Layer 2 — Per-press daily minute budget

Each press gets its own daily run-time bank in minutes. When a job is assigned to a press, its estimated duration is drawn from that press's bank.

Open45%

0–74% · safe to schedule

Heavy80%

75–99% · room for 1–2 short jobs

Full100%

100%+ · overtime or overbooking

Default per-press budget: 480 minutes (8 hours). A 15-minute changeover buffer is automatically reserved between consecutive jobs on the same press to account for cleanup, re-registration, and ink swaps.

Section 2

How job duration is estimated

Formulas by decoration method

When you schedule a job, Kontraktr™ auto-calculates its estimated run time based on the job's decoration method, quantity, and number of colors. This estimate is what gets drawn from the press's daily minute budget.

Screen Print

Jobs: SCREEN_PRINT presses (or HEAT_PRESS as fallback)

(qty × 15 sec) + (screens × 3 min)

Heat Press / DTF

Jobs: HEAT_PRESS or DTF_PRINTER presses

qty × 45 sec

Embroidery

Jobs: EMBROIDERY_MACHINE presses

qty × 3 min

Other / Unspecified

Jobs: Falls back to screen print formula

(qty × 15 sec) + (screens × 3 min)

Example — 100 shirts, 4-color screen print

Print time100 × 15 sec ÷ 6025 min

Setup time4 screens × 3 min12 min

Changeover bufferauto-added15 min

Total on press52 min

These defaults are calibrated for an experienced crew at a steady pace. If your shop consistently runs faster or slower, tune the base rates in Settings → Scheduler → Production Times. You can also override the estimate on any individual job by editing the Estimated Minutes field directly in the job detail.

Section 3

Scheduling jobs — manual & drag-drop

Three ways to put a job on the calendar

Any job can be scheduled or rescheduled in three ways. All three update the same field — the job's Scheduled Date — and immediately recalculate capacity.

① Job detail → Scheduled Date field

Open any job, find the Scheduled Date field in the scheduling section, click the calendar icon, and pick a date. Fastest method when you know exactly which day you want.

② Drag-and-drop on the Calendar (week/day view)

Grab any job card on the calendar and drop it on a new day cell. Capacity numbers update in real time. An Undo button briefly appears in the bottom-right corner if you drop it in the wrong spot.

The calendar will not block you from dropping a job on an over-capacity day — the cell just turns red. This is intentional: rush jobs sometimes need to bust the limit. The red is a warning, not a wall.

③ Drag from list view to a date row

In calendar list view, drag a job row to a different date row. Works the same as grid drag-drop — same update, same capacity recalc.

How status affects scheduling

A job's status does not prevent it from being scheduled. Almost all statuses can be placed on the calendar. The only exceptions are jobs already done or on hold:

All active statuses — schedulable

COMPLETED_ORDER, COMPLETED_PAID, ISSUE_HOLD — excluded from Smart Scheduler backlog (but you can still manually set a date)

Changing a job's status does not trigger a capacity recalculation. Only changing the Scheduled Date(or removing it) updates the day's capacity totals.

Section 4

Rush and Hot Rush priority

How priority affects queue order and Smart Scheduler behavior

Every job carries a priority: Normal, Rush, or Hot Rush. Priority controls two things: where jobs appear in the production queue and how the Smart Scheduler fills dates.

Normal

1×

Scheduled after Rush and Hot Rush. Moved first when a day is over capacity.

Rush

2×

Sorted above Normal in queue and schedule. Gets 2× weight in scheduler algorithm.

Hot Rush

3×

Always at the top. Gets 3× scheduling weight. Red HOT badge on calendar cards.

A Hot Rush job will notautomatically bump a Normal job off a day that's already manually scheduled. The Smart Scheduler only touches unscheduled jobs. To clear space for a rush order, drag Normal jobs to a later date manually first.

Section 5

The Smart Scheduler

Auto-fill your week with one click

The Smart Scheduler takes your entire backlog of unscheduled jobs and assigns each one to the earliest available date and compatible press. It runs in preview mode first — you can review and reject any suggestion before it goes live.

How it works, step by step

1Click the Scheduler Panel button in the sidebar (or the calendar icon in the top bar).
2Hit Generate. Kontraktr™ fetches all unscheduled jobs and sorts them: Hot Rush first, then Rush, then Normal. Within each tier, due-date-earliest comes first.
3For each job, the scheduler scans available days (respecting your Work Days setting and Scheduling Horizon). It checks both the global day limits and the target press's minute budget.
4Press compatibility is enforced automatically: screen print jobs go to SCREEN_PRINT presses, embroidery to EMBROIDERY_MACHINE, etc. If the ideal press is full, the scheduler tries compatible fallbacks (e.g., a Heat Press can take DTF overflow).
5A preview appears showing each job, its proposed date, assigned press, and a plain-English reason — e.g., "Hot priority ~2h 15m on Press 2 — earliest slot before due date".
6Review the suggestions. Accept all with Apply, or drag individual jobs on the calendar afterward to fine-tune.

Run the Smart Scheduler at the start of each week after entering new jobs. It's not a locked-in schedule — you can always drag jobs around after applying. Think of it as a first draft that saves 30–60 minutes of manual planning.

Section 6

Configuring your presses

Settings → Presses

Each piece of production equipment in your shop should be added as a Press. The Smart Scheduler and capacity tracking both depend on accurate press configuration.

Per-press settings

Namedefault: —

What you call the press. Use something identifiable: "M&R Challenger 8", "Heat Press 1", "Brother GT-3".

Typedefault: SCREEN_PRINT

Screen Print, Heat Press, DTF Printer, or Embroidery Machine. Controls which jobs can be routed to this press.

Max Colorsdefault: 8

Screen print only. The number of print heads on the press. Jobs requiring more colors than this limit won't be routed here.

Max Minutes Per Daydefault: 480

Daily run-time budget in minutes. The scheduler won't assign more than this total to the press in a single day. 480 min = 8-hour shift.

Changeover Bufferdefault: 15 min

Auto-reserved gap between consecutive jobs on this press. Accounts for cleanup, re-registration, and ink changes.

Active toggledefault: On

Disable a press temporarily without deleting it — useful when equipment is down for maintenance. Inactive presses are skipped by the scheduler.

Reorder presses by dragging the grip handle. The order determines which press the scheduler tries first when multiple presses are compatible with a job.

Go to Settings → Presses to add, edit, or reorder your equipment. Only admins and managers can change press configuration.

Section 7

Scheduler global settings

Settings → Scheduler

The global scheduler settings control the shop-wide day caps and the production-time formulas. Changes here affect all future scheduling calculations — existing scheduled jobs are not retroactively updated.

Max jobs per daydefault: 8

Maximum number of jobs scheduled on any single day. The calendar cell turns amber at 75% and red at 100% of this limit.

Max pieces per daydefault: 2,000

Maximum total garment count across all jobs in a day. Prevents accidentally stacking multiple high-quantity runs on the same day.

Work daysdefault: Mon–Fri

Which days of the week the scheduler treats as production days. Toggle Saturday and/or Sunday if your shop runs weekend shifts.

Scheduling horizondefault: 30 days

How far ahead the Smart Scheduler can place jobs. Increase to 60–90 days if you take orders well in advance.

Production timesdefault: 15 sec/shirt, 3 min/screen, 45 sec/transfer, 3 min/embroidery

The base rates used in duration calculations. Tune these to match your actual crew pace. Changes affect all new job estimates going forward.

Section 8

Handling overbooking

The system warns, never blocks

Overbooking is allowed. The calendar shows a red cell and exact numbers on hover — you decide how to handle it. Here's a practical approach for shops scaling to multiple presses:

1Open the overloaded day and review the job list. Sort by priority (Normal jobs are candidates to move).
2Drag the lowest-priority Normal jobs to the next open day. Check whether those days still have press capacity after the move.
3Rush and Hot Rush jobs stay. If a rush job is causing the overload, check whether it can be split across two presses or if overtime is viable.
4Keep Fridays at ~70% capacity. Jobs quoted Thursday evening always end up needing Friday production time — leave the buffer.
5After clearing the overload, re-run the Smart Scheduler on preview mode to confirm the rest of the week is balanced.

The press schedule view (Production → Press Schedule in the sidebar) shows a Gantt-style weekly view of every press side-by-side. It makes overbooking on a specific press obvious at a glance — use this view before quoting a turnaround time.

If a press is at 100% for a given day and you need to add another job, you have three real options: push the new job to the next day, authorize overtime, or reassign the job to a compatible press that has headroom. The red indicator is your cue to make that call — there's no automatic resolution.

Quick-start checklist for multi-press shops

Add all active presses in Settings → Presses with correct type, color count, and daily minute limit.

Set your Max Jobs Per Day and Max Pieces Per Day in Settings → Scheduler to match your actual throughput.

Toggle off Saturday / Sunday if you run Mon–Fri only (prevents Smart Scheduler from placing jobs on weekends).

Tune production times in Settings → Scheduler → Production Times if the auto-estimates are off for your crew.

Run the Smart Scheduler at the start of each week — review the preview before applying.

Check the Press Schedule view (Gantt) before quoting turnaround times on new jobs.

Keep Fridays ~70% full to absorb end-of-week rush orders.

Production Queue

Kanban board view of all in-progress jobs by status

Calendar overview

General article on the scheduling calendar feature

Still have questions about your scheduling setup?

Our support team understands screen printing workflows. We can help you configure capacity settings for your specific equipment and shift schedule.

Contact Support

Loading…