Siebel Loyalty Administration Guide > Working with Siebel Loyalty Program Members > About Working with Loyalty Members Using the Siebel Application Interface >

Lending Points to Loyalty Members

If a member has almost enough points to qualify for a desired redemption, then some companies lend the member enough points to qualify. The member pays back the loan with future accruals.

Loyalty does not allow a member to have a negative point balance. Instead, loans are used.

NOTE:  Loans can only give nonqualifying points.

To decide whether to lend a member points, you can perform the task described in Viewing Loyalty Member Details.

Setting the Maximum Loan That a Member Can Receive

Before you can approve the loan to a member, you must set the value of the maximum loan that the member can receive, and this value must be approved by an employee who is authorized to approve loans of that value. For information on how to specify the maximum loan that an employee can approve, see Adding Employees as Loyalty Users.

To set the maximum loan that a member can receive

1. Navigate to the Loyalty Members screen.
2. In the Loyalty Members list, click the Member Number (#) of the desired member.
3. In the More Info form, in the Max Point Loan field, enter the maximum number of points that can be loaned to this member.
4. If you are authorized to approve loans of this amount, then in the Max Point Loan Status field, select Approved.
5. If you are not authorized to approve loans of this amount, then in the Submitted field, select the manager who must approve the loan.

Lending Points to a Member

After the member's maximum loan limit has been approved, the member service representative uses the Loans view to create the loan.

To lend points to a member

1. Navigate to the Loyalty Members screen.
2. In the Members list, select the member and click its Member Number (#) hyperlink.
3. Click the Loans view tab.
4. Add a new record to the Loans list, and complete the necessary fields. Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Description
   Type	Select Accrual (automatically populated).
   Sub Type	Select Loan (automatically populated).
   Product/Service	Select the product that was created to represent the loan. This must be a product with the name Loan or a similar name.
   Points	Enter the number of points to be loaned.
   Point Type	Select the point type.
   Submit To	Select the manager who must approve this request. By default, this field contains the name of the member service representative's manager. The member service representative can change this value, if, for example, the manager is on vacation.
   Status	Select Submitted to submit the loan for approval.

5. The manager changes the loan transaction's status to Acceptable and clicks the Process button.

   The member's available points balance is increased by the loan amount.

Repaying the Loan

When a member earns points in the future, those points are used to pay back the loan.

To set up automatic repayment of loans, Setting Up Points Loan Repayment Workflow.

For manual repayment of the loan, follow this procedure.

To manually repay a loan

1. With the record for the loan selected in the Loans list, scroll down to see the Repayments list.
2. Add a new record to the repayments list, and complete the necessary fields. Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Description
   Product/Service	Select a product.
   Points	Enter the number of points to be repaid.
   Point Type	Select the point type. This must be the same type used in the loan.
   Submit To	Select the manager who must approve this request.
   Status	Displays In Progress.

3. Click the repayment's Transaction ID field.
4. Change the transaction's status to Submitted to submit the transaction for approval.
5. The manager approves the transaction by changing its status to Acceptable.
6. Click Process to process the transaction.

Redeeming the Loan

The loaned points remain available to the member until the member uses these points as part of a redemption. When the member redeems the loan by making a purchase, the points are debited from the member's account.