Referral analysis - Enabling the "permute groups" option generate resulting tables that are confusing

[Steeve Ebener]

Current Behavior

Imagine the FROM facilities to be health centers and the TO facilities to be laboratories

When you enable the "Permute groups" option you would still expect for the FROM and the TO to remains the same in the resulting table-referral Excel file but this is not the case. The FROM in this case are the Laboratories and the TO are the health centers. This being said the distance and travel time correspond to the FROM health centers to the closest laboratory.

The table_referral_nearest_by_time Excel file contains the closest pair from each Laboratory to the nearest health center while it should be from each health center to the nearest laboratory

The table_referral_nerest_by_dist Excel file is not always generated. When it is, the same issue as for the table_referral_nearest_by_time Excel file

Expected Behavior

The resulting table_referral Excel file to be organized according what has been defined as the FROM and TO facilities

The table_referral_nearest_by_time and table_referral_nearest_by_time Excel files contain the correct FROM and TO facilities

Possible Solution

Change the order and label of the columns in the resulting excel file when the "Permute groups" option has been enabled

Ensure for the right content for the table_referral_nearest_by_time and table_referral_nearest_by_time Excel files

Better explain what is happening when enabling the "Permute groups" in the online tutorial

Steps to Reproduce

1. Run a referral analysis on two small sets of facilities (from a to B) in which you enable the "Permute groups" options
2. Run a referral analysis on the same two small sets of facilities without enabling the "Permute groups" option
3. Open the resulting table_referral for both analysis and notice that while the distance and time information is the same for the same pairs, the FROM and TO is different (in the first case it is from B to A while it is from A to B in the second case)

Detailed Description

See above

[F.Moser]

@SteeveEbener, The issue should be resolved as of version 5.8.1-alpha.3. If everything works as expected, kindly close the issue. If not, please leave a comment, and I'll address it this week. Thanks !

[Nicolas Ray]

Tested on our side. Closing.

[Steeve Ebener]

I am reopening this issue because I finally had a chance to do the test and there is still a problem. Example:

Without permuting the groups (maximum travel time set to 0):

When permuting the groups (maximum travel time set to 0):

=> The distance is only mentioned for the closest TO by time when not permuting the groups while the distance appears for all the pairs when permuting the groups

[F.Moser]

Could you please provide the configuration files for both cases? This would help understanding/reproducing the issue. You can simply drag and drop them into the issue text area

Thanks 👍

[Steeve Ebener]

I found where the difference came from.

When you check the "Permute groups" setting, the "Limit the spatial analysis to the closest pair time-wise" line gets hidden as this analysis is not applicable in this case.

This being said, by being hidden I visually could not see the difference in the setting compared to the first analysis (without permutation). In other words, by hiding it we don't know if it is checked or not unless we read and understand the small text attached to the "Permute groups" option.

=> We might want to find another way to indicate that the option is not applicable (greying the line instead of hiding it?)

=> This should be the topic of another ticket I will create now and I can reclose this ticket.

Thanks