Support at Home rates and variants

Article contents:
New navigation
Variants
   > Summary
   > How do you see variants when rostering an exceptional visit?
   > How do variants work with recurring visits?
   > How can you see why a variant was chosen?
   > How are variants automatically chosen?
   > When are variants chosen?
   > Manual recalculation
   > How do I know the status of recalculation?
Things to watch out for
   > Incorrectly set up Membership plans
   > Overlapping configuration
Parent rates and variants: a recap
   > Glossary
   > What are variants?
   > What can be a variant?

 

New navigation

With this release, rate navigation has been updated so that each funding scheme now has its own dedicated page. This change makes it easier to view and manage rates by scheme.

Any rates not linked to a funding scheme will appear under the ‘Uncategorised’ page and will continue to work as before.

After setting up your Support at Home prices and Membership plan/s, you’re ready to start using your parent rates and variants.

 

Variants

Summary

With the October 15, 2025, release, parent rates and their variants can be used when scheduling. The variants can be overridden if needed, and we have added a tool that shows why a variant was chosen to assist with understanding any unexpected variant choices.

 

How do you see variants when rostering an exceptional visit?

After setting up a visit, scheduling staff can choose a parent rate from the dropdown.

The most relevant parent rate, based on the visit details, will display at the top. Once a parent rate is selected, Lookout will automatically select the most appropriate variant.

In the image above, you can see that when rostering, only the parent rate is displayed. Lookout will automatically select the correct variant.

Staff have the option to override this choice by clicking the wand button next to the variant:

Select the new variant and provide a reason for overriding (optional).

If you want to return to the automatic selection, click the red wand icon to let Lookout choose the most appropriate variant:

 

How do variants work with recurring visits?

When scheduling recurring visits, only the parent rate needs to be chosen. As each visit is scheduled, Lookout will select the best variant for the day of scheduling. For example, a schedule rule could be every week on Friday and Saturday. Lookout will schedule the Friday visits with a weekday variant, Saturday visits with the Saturday variant, and public holidays with the public holiday variant.

 

How can you see why a variant was chosen?

We’ve developed a handy tool to show why a variant was chosen, and maybe more importantly, why a variant in the family wasn’t chosen. Where it shows information about the chosen rate, click “Why was this variant chosen?”

This shows all variants in the family. If you expect another rate to be chosen, use this as a guide to fix the configuration of the rate, Membership plan, or visit.

 

How are variants automatically chosen?

Lookout selects variants by weighing available visit information in a specific order.

The criteria are weighed in this order:

1. Employee type
2. Day/s
3. Public holiday
4. Times
5. Membership plan services and rates match with chosen services
6. Visit duration

Other considerations:

If the criteria used above are all equal, then the following ordering applies:

1. If the rate is flagged as ‘Default’ in the rate settings, this will be chosen first
2. By suggested price, with the lowest first
3. By alphabetical order

 

When are variants chosen?

Recalculation for a visit's chosen variant happens automatically. This only occurs on scheduled visits. In-progress or complete visits will never be recalculated.

Recalculation occurs automatically when these actions occur:

1. The visit is edited by drag-and-drop or editing in the visit form
2. When schedule rule visits are generated
3. A rate’s attributes are edited – scheduled visits that begin after the rate is edited are recalculated
4. A rate is added or removed from a Membership plan – scheduled visits that begin after the removal or addition are recalculated.

Manual recalculation

1. Recalculation can be manually started from the rates page. A date for when recalculation should begin can be set, whether in the past or future.

2. Recalculation for all visits using rates on a Membership plan can be manually started from the Membership plan index. This will only recalculate visits on Memberships using that Membership plan.

How do I know the status of recalculation?

When a variant recalculation is triggered, Lookout will display an in-progress indicator. This may take a minute or two to appear.

Once recalculation is complete, the indicator will disappear, and all affected visits will be updated with the correct variant.

If an error occurs during recalculation, a warning icon will appear. Hovering over the icon will show a tooltip with a link to view the specific recalculation errors.

Clicking the link will take you to the errors page, where you can inspect what went wrong.

After resolving the issues, return to the rates page, select the affected rate, and choose: "Recalculate all visits using rates" to apply the recalculation again.

 

Things to watch out for

Incorrectly set up Membership plans

If a Membership plan does not include services, Lookout will fall back to a basic search when selecting rates. In this case, you’ll see a warning:

"Membership plan isn't set up with services. Smart query is disabled. Please set up Membership plan with services and rates."

To ensure variants work correctly, make sure all Membership plans include both services and rates. Without this, Lookout can’t smart match the right variant during scheduling.

Overlapping configuration

It’s recommended that automatically switched rates use non-overlapping conditions to avoid conflicts. For example, these two variants overlap and may cause unpredictable results:

• Visit duration: 1–4 hours
• Visit duration: 2–6 hours

To ensure your setup is working as intended, we recommend doing spot checks - check visits on known public holidays, weekends, or with edge-case durations to confirm the correct variant is selected.

 

Parent rates and variants: a recap

Glossary

Parent: the standard rate, acting as the default. Often this is the rate during standard hours during a weekday

Variant: a variation on the parent rate

Family: the family is the parent and all of its variants

Top-level rate: a rate that either has variants (a parent) or stands alone without any variants.

Segments: labels placed at the beginning of a family name that group rates by category, such as location or service range. Segments help distinguish between pricing structures that apply to different contexts, such as metro vs. regional pricing.

Examples:

• Metro – Personal care | Standard
• Regional – Personal care | Standard

 

What are variants?

Variants are variations to a standard rate (called a parent rate). For example, a standard rate may be for a domestic assistance service, Monday through Friday, between 6am and 6pm. Variations on this standard ‘parent’ rate might be domestic assistance on a Saturday, which would be a different hourly price.

The great thing about variants is that Lookout can automatically switch to the most appropriate variant of a parent rate when scheduling.

 

What can be a variant?

Variants can be created for:

• Different employee types: for example, contractors only
• Difference in service day/s: for example, a weekend day
• When the visit falls on a public holiday
• Difference in service time: for example, between 6pm and 11pm
• Difference in visit duration: for example, applies to visits that are between 0 and 60mins