Siebel Loyalty Administration Guide > Using Siebel Loyalty with Partners >

Selling Loyalty Points to Partners

Partners must purchase points from you, so they can give those points to members who make purchases from them.

When a partner submits a transaction that earns points for a member, those points are deducted from the partner's point balance (as tracked by point blocks). If the partner does not have enough points to give to the member, the transaction will be rejected.

Partners generally purchase points from the host company in two ways:

• Pre-Purchase. The partners buy points in large chunks before members earn the points. A point block representing the amount of points purchased is created and activated. When a partner's pre-purchased point balance gets low, the host company sells additional points to the partner. If the host company wants to prevent members' transactions from being rejected if the partner mistakenly fails to purchase additional points in time, the host company can create and activate a reserve point block that will only be used if the pre-purchased point block runs out of points. If the reserve point block is used, then host company charges the partner for these points as well as for another large point block.
• Post-Purchase. The partner pays for points only after they have been given to members. The host company creates a very large point block for the partner. If the partner is charged for points on a monthly basis, for example, the host company looks at the end of each month to see how many additional points have been debited from the point block since the end of the previous month and charges the partner for these points.

The partner manager can view the information that the partner entered by going to the Point Block Purchases view of the Partners screen. The partner manager changes the status to approved in order to make the points available.

The Point Block view also lists all previous blocks of points that the partner has purchased, so the host company can also use it to view the partner's point purchasing history.

Before you make the points available to partners, you must create the points, as described in Minting Point Blocks for Loyalty Programs.

NOTE:  You can also make points available for partners to purchase in the Loyalty Program Administration > Points Blocks view.

To make points available for partners to purchase

1. Navigate to the Partners > Partner List view.
2. In the Partners list, select the partner company that you will allow to purchase this point block.
3. Click the Partner Name field's hyperlink.
4. Click the Point Blocks view tab.
5. Add a new record to the Point Blocks list, and complete the necessary fields.

To activate points so they can be used by partners

1. Navigate to the Partners > Partner List view.
2. In the Partners list, select the partner company whose payment for the points you have received.
3. Click the Partner Name field's hyperlink.
4. Click the Point Blocks view tab.
5. If necessary, use a query to find Point Blocks with the status Submitted for Approval.
6. In the Status field, choose Approved.

   These points can be given to members who have transactions with this partner.