A method, apparatus, and system are provided for a visual administrator for specifying service references to support a service. According to one embodiment, a hierarchical tree structure having one or more tree nodes is displayed in a graphical user interface. Each of the one or more tree nodes may represent a resource of an application server. In an embodiment, at least one of the tree nodes represents a service of the application server. The tree node representing the service may be selected via a cursor control device. In one embodiment, upon selecting the tree node, a list of one or more service references associated with the service is displayed in the graphical user interface. Each listed service reference may include, for example, a server reference name, a service reference type, and/or a relationship value. In one embodiment, the relationship value specifies whether the listed service reference is to be automatically started when the service represented by the selected tree node is started.