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Set Up the Outlook Integration and Einstein Activity Capture

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
  • List the requirements and other setup considerations.
  • Setup the integration with Microsoft® Outlook®.
  • Set up Einstein Activity Capture.

Review System Requirements

Setting up the integration with Microsoft® Outlook® and Einstein Activity Capture isn’t difficult, but it does require some time. And if you don’t administer Microsoft Exchange, you can get that admin to work with you.

Before Ursa Major’s admin, Maria Jimenez, invests time in any setup, she reviews system requirements for the Outlook integration and Einstein Activity Capture.

Support Detail
Outlook Integration
Einstein Activity Capture
Editions
  • Essentials
  • Group
  • Professional
  • Enterprise
  • Performance
  • Unlimited
  • Developer
Available in Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic.
  • Essentials
  • Professional
  • Enterprise
  • Performance
  • Unlimited
Available in Lightning Experience.
User licenses
Requires the Standard Salesforce license with the purchase of Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, or Lightning Platform.
Supports up to 100 users on the Standard Salesforce license with Sales Cloud purchase. To set up more than 100 users for Einstein Activity Capture, a paid upgrade to Sales Cloud Einstein, Inbox, or High Velocity Sales is required.
Email server
Either:
  • Exchange 2019, 2016, or 2013 on-premises
  • Exchange Online with Office 365®
Integrating Salesforce with Outlook requires Exchange server settings and general knowledge of the server setup. Salesforce admins work with the Exchange admins when setting up the integration.
Either:
  • Exchange Server 2019, 2016, or 2013 on-premises
  • Exchange Online with Office 365
  • Exchange hybrid deployments (supports capture functionality only)
Email clients
See the system requirements.  See the system requirements.
Browser
For Outlook on the web users, any of these browsers that allow cookies from Salesforce:
  • Google Chrome™, most recent stable version
  • Mozilla® Firefox®, most recent stable version
  • Apple® Safari® 10 or later, most recent stable version recommended
  • Microsoft Edge, most recent stable version (Windows only)

Not applicable
Data storage
Data is stored on Microsoft servers and Salesforce servers only. If you also have Inbox, some data is stored using a public cloud provider.
Data is stored on Microsoft servers, Salesforce servers, and some data is stored using a public cloud provider.
Note

The High Velocity Sales name is changing to Sales Engagement. The automation features within the product now include customer engagement tracking, chat bots, and sales cadences. The new name captures all the tools to use to automate processes and to engage strategically with leads and customers so that your sales team can focus on selling. Watch for the name change, coming soon.

Want to Get Hands-on with the Outlook Integration and Einstein Activity Capture?

In this module, we assume you're a Salesforce administrator with the proper permissions to set up the Outlook integration and Einstein Activity Capture. If you’re not a Salesforce administrator, that’s OK. Read along to learn how your administrator would take the steps in a production org. Don't try to follow these steps in your Trailhead Playground. The Outlook integration and Einstein Activity Capture aren’t available in the Trailhead Playground.

Set Up the Outlook Integration

  1. Click Setup icon, and select Setup.
  2. Enter Outlook in the Quick Find box, and then select Outlook Integration and Sync.
  3. Turn on the Outlook integration. Setting to turn on the Outlook integration highlighted
  4. Ensure that Use Enable Enhanced Email with Outlook is on to log emails as standard message objects and activate Email to Salesforce. This setting lets reps add (or log) Outlook emails and their attachments to Salesforce records as Salesforce emails. Reps can add (or log) events to Salesforce records as well. Attachments for events aren't logged. When you use Einstein Activity Capture, email and event capture automatically adds Outlook emails and events to the activity timeline of related Salesforce records.
  5. Give your sales reps instructions to set up the integration in Microsoft Outlook.

Customize the Outlook Integration Pane

After Maria finishes the basics for setting up the integration with Outlook, she customizes features to give her reps the best selling experience. Here’s how.
  1. From Setup, enter Outlook in the Quick Find box, and then select Outlook Integration and Sync.
  2. Enable Customize Content with App Builder.
  3. In the Email Application Pane section, create a pane and use Lightning App Builder to add components to the pane and assign the panes to users. You get loads of flexibility customizing how Salesforce content appears in Outlook. Learn how to use Lightning App Builder to make your reps even more productive.
Note

Create Lightning Email Templates and add the Templates component to a customized App Builder Email Application Pane. Reps can quickly craft email messages using templates instead of writing messages from scratch. Learn how to use Lightning email templates with Outlook.

Sync Contacts and Events with Einstein Activity Capture

Maria’s email integration puzzle is almost done. The final piece is to make sure reps can find the same, up-to-date information whether they’re working in Salesforce or Outlook. That’s where Einstein Activity Capture comes in. By syncing contacts and events between Salesforce and Outlook, reps spend less time entering data and switching between the two applications and more time focused on selling. But Einstein Activity Capture offers more than just contact and event syncing.

Tool
Description
Benefit
Capture functionality
Emails and events that reps send and receive are automatically added to the activity timeline of related records.
Sales reps don’t waste time logging emails and events to Salesforce records. Plus, when subsequent activity occurs on added emails or events, that new activity is automatically added to Salesforce.
Sharing settings let you decide who can view the related emails and events, so that teams work together better.
Einstein Email Insights
Gives sales reps critical sales context alongside relevant emails.
Makes it easier for reps to send the timely communication to prospects and customers.
Activity dashboard
Shows a summary of sales activities that were added to Salesforce manually and by Einstein Activity Capture.
Visualize activity data and break it down into meaningful ways, such as by activity owners, activity types, and dates.
Activity metrics (Not available with Einstein Activity Capture Standard)
When you include Activity Metrics fields on list views, page layouts, reports, triggers, processes, and so forth, the data reflects activities that were added to Salesforce manually and by Einstein Activity Capture.
Gives sales teams the complete picture about activity data, and lets you create processes based on activity data.
Recommended connections (Not available with Einstein Activity Capture Standard)
Lead and contact records show which colleagues have the strongest connection to a prospect.
Makes it easy to connect with prospects to find new business.

Maria already reviewed the Einstein Activity Capture system requirements and it’s a good fit for Ursa Major’s syncing needs. The additional productivity tools provide more value than she anticipated.

Note

What about Lightning Sync? You may have heard about Lightning Sync, which also syncs contacts and events. Starting in Winter ’21, Lightning Sync availability is changing. Moving forward, Einstein Activity Capture is the long-term solution for syncing contacts and events between your Microsoft or Google applications and Salesforce. If you run Lightning Sync today and want to move to Einstein Activity Capture, first turn off Lightning Sync. The setting is located in the Lightning Sync section of the Outlook Integration and Sync page in Salesforce setup.

We continue to introduce improvements to Einstein Activity Capture based on the needs we hear from customers like you. To see when new features are available, stay tuned to the Salesforce Release Notes.

Set Up Einstein Activity Capture

Getting up and running with Einstein Activity Capture is simple.

  1. Give users access to Einstein Activity Capture through a permission set.
  2. From Setup, enter Einstein Activity Capture in the Quick Find box, and then select Settings. The guided setup flow guides you through the following steps.
    • Connecting to the Microsoft server.
    • Creating a configuration that controls what to capture and sync.
    • Assigning users to a configuration.
  3. Optionally, define settings that control how emails and events are captured. For example, prevent Einstein Activity Capture from adding emails and events associated with a specific person or company. And select how new Einstein Activity Capture users share their emails and events.
  4. If you use only Einstein Activity Standard, turn on email insights. If you use Einstein Activity Capture through an add-on license, email insights is turned on by default.

Want your reps to do even more? Learn about how adding Inbox features to the Outlook integration provides your reps with even more tools in their email.

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