Similar grievance groups
The MIS spots grievances that describe the same problem and gathers them into similar groups (or clusters). A group reveals a recurring problem (for example a payment delay in one sector) and avoids handling the same cause ten times.
In the grievance list
When groups exist, the Similar groups panel shows above the list:
- each group displays its label, its keywords and its grievance count; “Click to view” filters the list to the group's grievances;
- All grievances and Ungrouped return to the full list or to isolated grievances;
- the counter reads “n of total grievances grouped”.
Administrators have two actions:
- Analyse (or Re-analyse grievances): runs the grouping over all grievances;
- Merge: select at least two groups then Merge clusters; the merged group gets a label and the total grievance count.
A grievance record has no “similar grievances” section: grouping is browsed from the list.
When grouping happens
| Trigger | Who |
|---|---|
| Grievance import from KoboToolbox or Survey Solutions | automatic, for imported grievances |
| Analyse button in the panel | administrator |
app:plaintes:analyze-clusters command on the server | operations |
Creating a grievance in the MIS does not trigger grouping: the form's duplicate detection acts at that moment instead (same complainant, same subject, see Create a grievance).
How similarity is measured
Each grievance's text (subject and description) is compared with the others:
- when the Cohere API key is configured on the server, through multilingual embeddings (model
embed-multilingual-v3.0), similarity threshold 0.75; - otherwise through a lexical TF-IDF measure, threshold 0.45.
A group has at least two grievances. Thresholds are set in the code; there is no setting in the interface.
Uses
- Recurring problem: a group of “payment not received” grievances in one sector points to an operator incident to fix at the source, then to document in the knowledge base.
- Consistent handling: grievances in one group get the same answer; an identical public comment can be reused.
- Duplicates: two grouped grievances from the same complainant are handled together; one is resolved, the other declared Not eligible with the reason “duplicate of …”.
Statistics
The Grievances tab of Reports gives the breakdown by component, type, status and delay; the groups panel gives the share of grouped grievances.
Limits
- Very short grievances or those without a description are rarely grouped.
- Grouping is an analysis aid: it changes neither the status nor the assignment of grievances.