Remove patient after release location. Bug?

[SCHamoen]

[ FlexSim 21.0.1 ]

I'm aware that a location is not really released until the patient has actually left it. But I would expect that after a remove patient the location would also be released. Is this by design or a bug?

See model:

ProblemRelease.fsm

[Matthew_Gillespie · Accepted solution]

It's not really by design, but I wouldn't call it a bug - it's more like user error. Why are you deleting the patient while still inside a location? Because you don't want to model the person walking to an exit? Then make sure you use a MoveObject activity to have the person exit the location.

We could possibly handle this case better for the user and have the person automatically moved out of a location before removing them. But, there are still plenty of other cases we don't handle. If you remove a person without releasing a location then the location isn't automatically released for you. Most of these sorts of things are very low priority since most users just take care of it themselves and its not a big deal.

[SCHamoen]

@Matthew Gillespie It was a model of a client that was send to me to debug and I had some trouble finding out what was wrong. It might be better to let the patient walk to the exit but if it has no impact on your results you might as well just leave it out and remove the patient directly. You build a model to get a result. And I'm not sure the average user would think of adding a moveobject. To be honest, the way the release location works is already not intuitive. Because what it now has become is a wait for location exit trigger, which is something different then a release location.

I know you are not going to change this anymore but I would normally expect that if you release the location it becomes available again. If you want that it becomes available after the patient leaves the location, you should place the activity of releasing after the patient leaves the location.

And I don't agree with you about your example either 😉 . If you don't release the location you actually forget to perform an activity. In this case you do all the activities you are supposed to do but the program doesn't react as you might normally expect it to react.

[Matthew_Gillespie]

@steven.hamoen "I would normally expect that if you release the location it becomes available again" - It's not that simple because people keep asking for things like this, "Why can't it do X automatically when you release the location?"

A lot of stuff happens when you release a location. A big one is that it automatically tries to perform maintenance and, thus, is not immediately available. However, maintenance can't start if there is a person still in the location so it waits for the patient to leave.

If you immediately make the location available then a new person can get into the location before the old person leaves. Then a user says the "program doesn't react as you might normally expect it to react."

Also, deleting a person inside a location is just a bad idea in general. Even if the location became available immediately the stats for content and staytime for that location would be messed up. So this is still a case where you "actually forget to perform an activity".

[SCHamoen]

@Matthew Gillespie I think I'm already oldfashioned in the sense that process flow was there to make your own logic so you and only you are responsible. This feels a bit like the python vs ruby discussion where ruby does al these things for you but you are not aware how and where they are done..... (I like the python way better 😉 )

But looking at it from the HC population I kind of understand what you want to achieve but still find it not intuitive (an activity that releases a location should release that location) But let's not waste more of your and my time. Thanks for taking the time to explain.