When creating job requests, often times the question of "quantity" comes into play. Whether to use a group request or a cluster depends on whether you're dealing with assets or jobs.
A "cluster" is a collection of the same type of asset. For example, two frontload bins or five portable toilets. With a cluster, those would be represented as "Frontload x2" or "Portable Toilet x5". Your dispatchers and drivers always know the quantity of the cluster and the rest of your CRO system does, too!
Even though you have a cluster of assets, each individual asset is still accounted for and charged for. It simply makes it so your drivers and dispatchers can work with all of those assets at once, rather than create requests for each asset individually. A cluster can only contain assets of the same asset type.
A "group request" is a collection of jobs. For example, if you had to drop off a 6 yard bin and an 8 yard bin at the same time, but only want to give your driver a single job, then a group request would contain both of those dropoffs. Instead of seeing, "Dropoff of a 6yd" and "Dropoff of a 8yd" requests you would see one "Group Request" that contains both jobs.
In effect, group requests allow you to drag multiple jobs at once onto or off of a truck at once!
As mentioned, with both clusters and group requests, you're working with multiple instances of each. Even though the jobs or assets are compressed together, each one is still processed individually in terms of reporting, inventory management and billing.