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You are sitting with a household and someone asks what waiting two more years would do. Move a lever and the figures it feeds recalculate while you watch.

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What a lever is

A lever is a labeled control wired into the plan’s math, usually a slider with a range, a step and a starting value. The controls sit in a card titled for the question it answers, opening on the values the plan was published with. Where Hazel has not named it, the card reads Optimized plan. That card usually sits on a priority card in the Your priorities tab of Getting there, beside the recommendation it belongs to. Some plans put it above the tabs on Getting there itself, and some carry bare sliders inside a tab. If a plan looks like it has no controls, scan Getting there and its tabs first. A control that feeds two priority cards appears on both, and moving it on one moves it on the other.

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What happens when you move one

Everything that control feeds recalculates immediately in your browser. Figures in the other tabs of Getting there re-solve too, and switching tabs leaves your positions where you put them.
  • The prose does not rewrite itself. A sentence can still quote the earlier number while the gauge beside it shows the new one, because the words were set when the plan was published. Ask Hazel to update the section and it comes back as a new version.
  • Nothing is written down. Reload the page and every control returns to the value the plan published.

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Putting a lever back

A button at the bottom of the card returns every control in the whole plan to Hazel’s recommendation, not only the one you touched, so it clears your exploration on the other cards and tabs too. It is labeled for what it returns to, and reads Reset to optimized where Hazel has not named it.
  • A live Reset on a card you have not touched means you moved a control elsewhere.
  • Sliders sitting bare in a tab have no Reset button. Reload the page to put those back.
  • It goes to Hazel’s recommendation, not to a position that has since been approved and saved, so read the values before you present them.
  • It changes only what is on your screen, so it works on an older version you are reading. A control you moved travels with you between versions unless that version changed it, so Reset is how you read one exactly as published.

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When a lever moves nothing

  • A line under the controls saying they are preview only means Hazel drew the control but could not wire it into this plan’s math. The wording narrows to “not every control here” when only some are inert.
  • A line under one visual saying it shows the plan as published means it is holding the published scenario while the figures around it re-solve. Only Range of outcomes and Mix comparison do this, and the line disappears when your controls go back.
With no notice at all, the figures do not depend on that control. In each case, ask Hazel in chat for the analysis instead.

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Making an explored value stick

Press Approve on the recommendation the card sits with: Approve reads whatever the controls are showing and writes a row into the plan’s Decisions section, reading either “Approved as suggested” or “Approved with modifications”. Save in the bar at the bottom of the plan then commits it as a new version. If Approve is grayed out and hovering it reads “Requires plan recalculation”, the change needs Hazel to re-run the math. Controls that do not sit with a recommendation have no Approve at all. Either way, ask in chat and the change comes back as a new version.
Dragging a card into a new order is the one gesture here that is not exploration: the drag stages a change straight away, the top bar shows an unsaved change, and you cannot export until you save or discard it. Where the order feeds the math the grip is inert and hovering it reads “Reordering this plan needs a Hazel round-trip”, so ask Hazel in chat.
A downloaded PDF prints the card as the settled values the plan was published with, under its own heading or Plan settings where Hazel has not named it.

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Adding a lever

Ask in the plan’s own conversation: Edit in the top bar in the chat view, Open chat on the household’s Financial Planning tab.
A vague request works too, and you get Hazel’s judgment on the range. If no card appears, say so in the same chat and ask where it went. Some requests come back as analysis instead. A control has to be something your browser can recompute on the spot: amounts, ages, percentages, switches and either/or choices. A Roth conversion amount does not qualify: which bracket it fills and what it does to a Medicare premium two years later does not move in a straight line. Hazel settles that one in the conversation and writes the answer into the plan. Your firm can also prescribe the sliders a lever card should offer, up to twelve per card. In Plan design, open Design layout, select the Levers to try card, open Advanced, and add rows under Levers. A prescription is a floor, so Hazel may add more alongside them. See Block settings.

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Levers compared to scenario comparisons

Ask for a comparison when you want both answers on screen at once. It marks the better option row by row with a Better badge, can carry one closing line underneath, and its columns re-solve with your controls.

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Where to go next