Integrating Gmail and Calendar with Salesforce

If you are looking for a solution to integrate Gmail and Google Calendar with Salesforce.com CRM – there are several approaches and apps available. Integrating Gmail and Calendar with Salesforce is also possible with Salesforce Einstein Activity Capture feature.

What is Einstein Activity Capture?

Einstein Activity Capture is a tool that lets you easily sync up your email, calendars with Salesforce. Einstein Activity Capture works in two ways: 

• Email & Calendar Sync – Capturing emails and events from either your Microsoft or Google account, and then add them to the activity timeline of any related records in Salesforce, thus saving you from manually entering activities into Salesforce.
• Contact Sync – Syncing contacts between Salesforce and your Microsoft or Google account is also possible with Einstein Activity Capture.

Einstein Activity Capture comes with Activity Metrics that can help Salesforce users to make better decisions. For example, managers might add the Inactive Days and Lead Score fields to a lead list view. Then they can see which high-scoring leads haven’t had any activity.

How to Enable Einstein Activity Capture?

If already not enabled then to enable Einstein Activity Capture you have to reach out the Salesforce Support. Once it is enabled, you should see Einstein Activity Capture under the setup menu.

Enable the Einstein Activity Capture from the Setting menu.

Step 1: Turn on Einstein Activity Capture

Click on Settings  >> Click on Capture Settings >> Turn on Einstein Activity Capture

Step 2: Assign Permission set to User

You will need any one of the following permissions set depending on the type of your license.

License	Permission set
Sales Cloud Einstein	Sales Cloud Einstein
Inbox	Inbox with Einstein Activity Capture
Sales Cloud	Standard Einstein Activity Capture

Step 3: User Setup

Once the permission set added to the user, the user needs to configure it from their setup menu. 

Click on username from the top right corner, click Settings,  looks for Einstein Activity Capture, then click Settings.

It will popup the Meet Inbox window, then click on  Next and follow the wizard.

Then, select a Google or Microsoft account to connect.

Once the account added, it will be shown in the Connected Account under the user Einstein Activity Capture setup menu.

Setup for Einstein Activity Capture completed successfully

Key Features of Einstein Activity Capture

Here are the key features of Einstein Activity Capture:

1. Automatic Emails Sync: Captures every email created in Gmail or Office 365. 
2. Automatic Calendar Sync: Calendar events that users send and receive are automatically added to Salesforce.
3. Automatic Contact Sync: Contact data synced from the email, events, and address book with Salesforce. 
4. Sync Multiple Email Accounts: Users can connect multiple email accounts with Salesforce.
5. Capture Settings: The admin can select what to capture and can enable or disable email capture from an Einstein Activity Capture configuration.s can update those controls at any time either from Salesforce or their inbox.
6. Sharing Settings:  Adjust who can see your emails and events to ensure the privacy of data. Salesforce admins can update those controls at any time either from Salesforce or their inbox.
7. Reporting: Sales Cloud Einstein gives you access to advanced analytics dashboards built on Einstein Analytics. Sales leaders, managers, and reps can use the Sales Analytics app to glean deeper insights into their sales data.

Important things to know about Einstein Activity Capture

• Activities stored outside of salesforce: Activities captured by Einstein Activity Capture are not stored in Salesforce. They are hosted on a secure (AWS) server of salesforce which is outside of salesforce.
• Activities cannot be reported on standard Salesforce reports (since the data is not stored in Salesforce.com). Activities however show in the timeline.
• Users cannot delete emails from Einstein Activity Capture. This must be performed by a System Administrator. 
• If you migrate away from Einstein Activity Capture at some point in the future and deactivate the service, all of the activities captured by Einstein Activity Capture are no longer displayed in Salesforce on record timelines this is huge and can cause some real issues and challenges for clients.
• Only 24 months of captured activity data is displayed and stored.
• ORGs must use the Activity Timeline with Einstein Activity Capture. It is not possible to use the Related List view for activities.
• Emails exchanged between a user’s internal domain aren’t associated with Salesforce records, regardless of the Excluded Addresses settings.
• Events are associated with related records in Salesforce. If the organizer is outside of Salesforce, the event will remain as a floating event because there is no associated record to the organizer.
• Recurring events are not synced with Einstein Activity Capture.

Know more

If you want to learn more – you can refer to the salesforce Help documentation for Einstein Activity Capture. If you need help or support in setting up Einstein Activity Capture – connect with our team for Salesforce Professional Services.