You may want to create multiple plans when exploring a range of possible plan options for a household. This is sometimes called "Scenario Analysis" or "A/B Testing". Typically, you'll want plan options to differ minimally from each other so that you can easily evaluate the impact of different decisions. Here's how to do Scenario Analysis in Income Lab. Continue reading after the video for more useful tips for navigating your plans.
Video: How to Navigate Plan Scenarios
Tutorial Transcript
hello today I will show you how to
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navigate your plan scenarios there are
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two ways to add plans to your plan
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scenarios the first way is by using your
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dashboard you'll click the three dot
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icon in the upper right hand corner and
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then select copy
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plan the second way to do this is to
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navigate to the plan scenarios page you
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could find this by selecting the three
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horizontal line icon on the left hand
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side of your screen labeled plan
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scenarios
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once here you will find this blue button
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that says create new scenario you can
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create a new scenario from here as well
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now that we're on the plan scenario page
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I want to show you three key features in
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using the plan scenarios one is the
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newest feature in which we are able to
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move and organize our plans grab this
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gray bar next to any plan and you can
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drag and drop to organize your plans
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this is great if you have a lot of plans
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and you want to organize it in a way
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that works best for you
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the second feature I want to show is the
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star icon notice at the top you have a
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primary plan anything that has the
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yellow star icon is going to be your
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primary plan so for instance I can
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navigate to this test plan two and click
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the star and this will promote it to
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your primary
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plan now in order to track and monitor a
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plan there are two ways you could do
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this you could select the three dot icon
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and select track and monitor this plan
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or or with your primary plan you can
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click track and monitor
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here you can go ahead and select track
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and
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monitor and it will wait for the results
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to
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load now that it is loaded there are two
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ways you can check to make sure it's
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being tracked and monitored here you'll
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have a green button that says this plan
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is currently being tracked and monitored
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or you can navigate back to the
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dashboard you can click this drop down
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here and you will see that there's a
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green check mark next to test plan 2
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this shows you that this is the plan
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that is being tracked and
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monitored thank you for joining me today
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if you have any questions please reach
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out to our support team
Step 1: Create a baseline
In you're engaging in Scenario Analysis, you'll first want to create a baseline for the household. Typically, this means entering all of the baseline data for a household in the Household Info section. Baseline data is the information you want to assume for all of your scenarios.
Step 2: Create Alternative Plan Scenarios
From the Plan Scenarios page, simply click + Create new scenario. This will seed a plan with information from the household. From this point, you can make one or more adjustments to the plan, such as:
- Retire sooner/later
- Buy a vacation home
- Fund a wedding or a grandchild's education
- Downsize a home
- Move to a different state
You can also create new plan scenarios by copying an existing plan scenario.
Selecting a new Plan as the Primary Plan
If you have a primary plan that is being tracked and monitored, you may wish to change it.
Selecting a new plan as the Primary Plan (using the star (⭐) icon) will show a pop-up to allow you to choose how you'd like to proceed.
💡Tip
As you create several plans for each household, the "Plan Description" field becomes more important. This field, located on step one of the plan stepper, enables you to note the differences between plans, allowing you to identify what is unique about a scenario without needing to review the plan inputs to compare one scenario with others.
