What is Multi-day Planning? Planning Across a 7-Day Horizon

Summary

Planning one day at a time works well until timing has some give across days and workload needs to stay even - a day planned in isolation tends to absorb as much work as it can fit, even when spreading that work over the next few days would produce a better result. Multi-day Planning lets you plan up to 7 continuous days in a single session. With the whole horizon in view, work is grouped by area and spread across days more sensibly, rather than being crammed into whichever day it first lands on.

Prerequisites

- An active Luminar Starter subscription (Multi-day Planning is an add-on module and cannot be used on its own).

- No specific Business Type requirement - Multi-day Planning works in both Time-Constrained and Capacity-Constrained Business Units.

- Permission to access the Subscription Management page (usually an account admin/owner role) if you need to subscribe or check pricing.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Subscribe to Multi-day Planning

From the main menu after logging in, go to Subscription Management to view current pricing and subscribe. If you qualify for the 30-day free trial (one Business Unit with 5 or fewer resources), Multi-day Planning is included automatically. If you start with more than 5 resources, the trial does not apply and your first payment is taken immediately on subscribing.

2. Select your planning horizon

When starting a planning session, choose a horizon of up to 7 continuous days instead of a single day. The planning horizon is the hard outer boundary of the plan - every trip's start and end must fall within it.

3. Let work spread across the horizon

With the longer view, tasks are balanced across the days available so no single day carries more than its share, and work in the same area can be grouped onto the same days rather than resources covering the same ground twice in a week.

4. Review least-cost scheduling within service windows

Every task is still planned to honour its service window. Where timing has flexibility, a task lands on the day that is least cost to serve, rather than being forced into a fixed slot.

5. Check for overlapping trips

A resource is never planned into two trips that overlap, even across different days of the horizon - trips for a resource are sequential, not concurrent.

6. Handle trips and operating windows that span days

A trip's start and end must fall within the planning horizon, but with a multi-day horizon trips can extend across days. Overnight operating windows with a start time later than the end time (for example 20:00-06:00) express continuous overnight operation across days. When re-planning, existing trips that are not fully contained within the selected horizon are locked - they cannot be changed by that session, and the resource availability they consume is respected.

7. Adjust before publishing

While a trip is still in the planned state, you're in control on the Gantt - reassign tasks, move them, or take them off a trip until the plan fits the way you want to work. Publish when it's ready.

8. (Optional) Combine with other modules

- Multi-day Planning can be subscribed to directly with Luminar Starter alone - no other module is required.

- With Smart Planning, the optimizer plans and optimizes across the full multi-day horizon, which can make planning significantly faster as your operation becomes more complex.

- With Size-Up, capacity dimensions are respected across every day of the horizon.

9. Removing Multi-day Planning (if needed)

You can remove Multi-day Planning at any time from Subscription Management. Your Luminar Starter base and any other active modules keep working. Your data and settings are retained, and your configuration is restored if you resubscribe.

Frequently asked questions

Does Multi-day Planning require Smart Planning?

No. Multi-day Planning can be used directly with Luminar Starter. Smart Planning isn't required, but it can make planning significantly faster as your operation becomes more complex.

Does Multi-day Planning replace single-day planning?

No. It adds the longer view - it doesn't take the single day away. You can still focus on one day whenever that's what you need.

Can I adjust a multi-day plan?

Yes. However it's put together, the plan is a starting point, not a lock-in. While a trip is still in the planned state, you can reassign tasks, move them, or take them off a trip on the Gantt until the plan fits the way you want to work.

Can I remove Multi-day Planning later?

Yes, at any time. Your Luminar Starter base and any other active modules keep working, and your configuration is restored if you resubscribe.

When to contact support

Contact support if:

- Multi-day Planning does not appear as an option even though you have an active Luminar Starter subscription.

- Trips are showing as overlapping for a single resource when they should be sequential.

- Existing trips are not locking correctly when re-planning a horizon that partially overlaps them.

- Overnight operating windows spanning days are not being respected during planning.

- Pricing shown on the Subscription Management page looks incorrect, or a trial/subscription charge does not match what you expect.

For anything not covered in this article, reach out to the support team via the Helpdesk so we can investigate your specific Business Unit configuration.