How are Pickups created from Commercial Service schedules?
Discovery automatically creates Pickups for Commercial Services as part of a nightly process. It only does this when the service's Service Schedule Type is Scheduled and the service isn't suspended.
Automatically generated pickups have the source "Service Schedule". Each emptying carries an estimated weight of 75% of the service's total bin capacity, based on bin size, quantity and material density.
Pickup Days vs. Average Pickups Per Week
A Scheduled service tells Discovery how often it is serviced in one of two ways:
- Pickup Days: the specific days of the week the hauler services the bins (for example, Monday and Thursday).
- Average Pickups Per Week: the number of pickups per week, without specific days (for example, 2).
Both settings represent the same amount of service, but Discovery creates pickups differently for each.
Service with Pickup Days (Monday and Thursday)
Discovery creates one Pickup record for each scheduled day. Each record is dated on that day and has a Times Emptied value of 1.
In October 2026 this service gets 9 separate pickups:
| Day | Dates |
|---|---|
| Mondays | Oct 5, 12, 19, 26 |
| Thursdays | Oct 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 |
The count follows the calendar, so it changes from month to month. A month with five Mondays or five Thursdays gets more pickups than a month with four of each.
Below is an example of a Regularly Scheduled Commercial Service, where a Pickup record was automatically generated on the scheduled service day.
This is the matching and automatically generated Pickup record generated on Thursday 05/02/2024.
Service with no Pickup Days and Average Pickups Per Week of 2
Discovery doesn't know which days the service happens, so it creates one Pickup record per month:
- It covers the whole month (for example, Oct 1 – Oct 31).
- Its Times Emptied value is the expected number of pickups for the month.
- Its weight is the single-pickup estimate multiplied by Times Emptied.
The expected monthly count is:
Average Pickups Per Week × 52 weeks ÷ 12 months
2 × 52 ÷ 12 = 8.67 pickups per month
So October 2026 gets one pickup dated Oct 1 – Oct 31 with Times Emptied of 8.67. Every full month gets the same 8.67, whether it has 28, 30 or 31 days. Times Emptied can be a decimal because it's an average.
Side-by-side
|
|
Pickup Days (Mon & Thu) | Avg. Pickups Per Week = 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Records per month | One per scheduled day | One for the whole month |
| Pickup date | The actual service day | First to last day of the month |
| Times Emptied | 1 per record | 8.67 on the single record |
| Pickups in October 2026 | 9 | 8.67 |
| Monthly total | Follows the calendar (8 or 9, etc.) | The same every full month |
| Best for | Fixed, known service days | Unknown or varying service days |
Tip: If you know the service days, enter them as Pickup Days. You get dated pickups and more accurate monthly counts. When a service has both, Discovery uses the Pickup Days.
Partial months and schedule changes
- Pickup Days: pickups are created only on scheduled days that fall on or after the service's effective date (and on or before its termination date).
- Average Pickups Per Week: the monthly count is prorated. For a service effective October 15, the record covers Oct 15–31 with Times Emptied of 8.67 × 17/31 ≈ 4.75.
- If a schedule changes mid-month, each part of the month uses the schedule that was in effect for it.
Pickups you enter or edit
If you manually enter or edit a pickup, the nightly process keeps it:
- Pickup Days: if a pickup you entered or edited already covers a scheduled day, no generated pickup is added for that day.
- Average Pickups Per Week: pickups you entered or edited count toward the month's expected total. The generated record only fills the remainder.
If you have additional questions or need more in depth information, please feel free to send us a message using the help beacon in the lower right-hand corner.