To enable an external application, such as a member portal, to securely access Salesforce data via APIs, a Connected App must be configured within the Salesforce Platform. The Connected App acts as an intermediary, using standard protocols like OAuth 2.0 to authenticate the external system and authorize its access to specific Salesforce resources. This is a fundamental security and integration prerequisite for allowing external systems to call Salesforce APIs, including those for Loyalty Management, to fetch member information.

A. Create custom objects in Loyalty: Accessing standard member information does not require creating custom objects; Loyalty Management uses its own set of standard and managed objects.

C. Create customer integration code: Writing integration code is the implementation step for calling the API, but the prerequisite on the Salesforce side is to first establish the secure connection point via a Connected App.

D. Create Data Processing jobs: Data Processing Engine (DPE) jobs are used for batch processing and rule calculations, not for enabling real-time, transactional API access from external systems.

1. Salesforce Help, Loyalty Management Developer Guide, "Get Started with Loyalty Management APIs": "To get started with Loyalty Management APIs, create a connected app in your Salesforce org. The connected app gets a consumer key and a consumer secret, which are used in the OAuth 2.0 authentication flow to get an access token."

2. Salesforce Help, "Connected Apps": "A connected app integrates an application with Salesforce using APIs. Connected apps use standard SAML and OAuth protocols to authenticate, provide single sign-on, and provide tokens for use with Salesforce APIs."

3. Salesforce Developer Documentation, "OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect on the Salesforce Platform": This documentation details the authentication flows that rely on a Connected App's consumer key (client ID) and consumer secret (client secret) to grant access tokens for API requests. The creation of the Connected App is the first step in any of these flows.