Administrative Application

The administrative application is the user interface that configures and manages the operation of the system. In an ideal implementation, every rule change, content change, and other operational need can be accomplished via the administrative application.

More so than even the underlying capabilities of a system, the administrative application will determine whether the system, operations, and perhaps even the entire loyalty initiative, succeeds or fails. The lack of an administrative application will make any system more costly and harder to manage and substantially increase the likelihood of errors, certainly impacting the members, and in many cases the liability of a program.

The maturity levels associated with administrative applications are detailed in the following table. They range from a low of 0, meaning that essentially no application exists, to a high of 5, where the administrative application is used to change the application itself. At this highest level of maturity, the application is in many respects simply data to a sophisticated data management tool.

Maturity Level	Hallmarks
0	Name: None Direct access to tables is made to configure the system
1	Name: Afterthought Limited capabilities Not synchronized with feature release Business logic split between tiers Little (or no) thought to security
2	Name: Structuring Business logic is centralized Security at a modular/module level Limited ability to distribute work
3	Name: Rounding Out Security at a functional level Interfaces available for configuration of most capabilities Highly distributable Some formatting and display control
4	Name: Dynamic Substantial formatting and display control Workflow control
5	Name: Self Referencing Ability to change self through self

More to come ...