Using Emails Like Real Activities in Salesforce

Salesforce's Einstein Activity Capture has long been a double-edged sword for sales teams. While it automatically logs emails with minimal effort, those emails have historically lived off-platform, creating significant limitations for reporting, automation, and data management. The Summer '25 release changed this fundamental architecture with a new feature called "Sync Email as Salesforce Activity."

The Historical Challenge with Einstein Activity Capture

Einstein Activity Capture first launched in Spring 2017 as Automated Activity Capture, designed to automatically sync emails and events from connected email systems. The feature worked well for basic activity tracking, but it came with a critical architectural limitation that frustrated users for years.

While events and contacts were stored as native Salesforce records, emails were stored off-platform. This meant that emails captured through Einstein Activity Capture couldn't be:

• Exported or accessed via SOQL queries
• Used in Flow automation or other platform tools
• Included in standard Salesforce reports
• Leveraged for custom business processes

This limitation left sales teams with incomplete visibility into their customer interactions and prevented them from building sophisticated automation around email activity.

Salesforce's Previous Workaround Solutions

Recognizing these limitations, Salesforce introduced several substitute solutions over the years:

• Activity Dashboard

The Activity Dashboard provided managers with high-level activity views using CRM Analytics. However, it wasn't customizable for most license types, which limited its practical application.

• Activity Metrics

Introduced in Spring 2019, Activity Metrics added summary fields like "Last Activity Date" and "Activities in the Last 30 Days" to core objects. While these fields worked in reports and list views, they still didn't expose the underlying email data.

• Activity 360 Reporting

Winter 2024 brought Activity 360 Reporting, which finally made Einstein-captured emails visible in reports. This solved part of the visibility problem, but emails remained stored off-platform, keeping automation and API access out of reach.

The Gamechanger: Sync Email as Salesforce Activity

The Summer '25 release introduced "Sync Email as Salesforce Activity," a setting that fundamentally changes how Einstein Activity Capture handles email data. When enabled, emails captured by Einstein Activity Capture are stored as native Task and EmailMessage records within Salesforce.

This single architectural change eliminates the historical limitations that have plagued Einstein Activity Capture users. Emails now:

• Appear in standard Salesforce reports alongside other activities
  

• Can be used in Flow automation and other platform tools 
  

• Are accessible via SOQL queries and APIs
  

• Behave like first-class Salesforce data  
  

• Work with advanced features like Agentforce and Prompt Builder

Enhanced Capabilities for Sales Teams

With emails now stored as native Salesforce records, sales teams can:

• Build Advanced Reporting: Create comprehensive activity reports that include email interactions alongside calls, meetings, and other touchpoints.
  

• Trigger Automated Workflows: Use Flow to automatically create follow-up tasks, update opportunity stages, or notify team members based on email activity.
  

• Improve Sales Engagement: Leverage email data to better understand customer engagement patterns and optimize outreach cadences.
  

• Enable AI-Powered Insights: Use tools like Agentforce to analyze email sentiment, suggest next steps, or draft personalized responses.

Implementation Considerations

Data Storage Impact

The most significant consideration when enabling this feature is data storage. Storing emails as native Salesforce records consumes your organization's data storage limits. Organizations with high email volumes should carefully evaluate their storage capacity and consider implementing retention policies to manage long-term storage costs.

Email Sharing Changes

Enabling Sync Email as Salesforce Activity also changes how email sharing works. Email sharing will follow standard activity sharing rules rather than the legacy Einstein Activity Capture email sharing model. This provides more consistent behavior but may require updates to your sharing settings.

Enhanced Email Requirement

This feature requires Enhanced Email to be enabled in your Salesforce org. Enhanced Email provides additional functionality for email management and is a prerequisite for the new email sync capabilities.

Getting Started with Email Sync

To enable Sync Email as Salesforce Activity:

1. Navigate to Einstein Activity Capture setup in your Salesforce org
2. Locate the "Sync Email as Salesforce Activity" setting
3. Enable the feature and configure your preferences
4. Choose whether to capture full email content or just headers
5. Review and update your sharing settings as needed

The feature is available across Starter, Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, and Einstein 1 Sales editions, and works with Einstein for Sales, Sales Engagement, and Revenue Intelligence in Lightning Experience.

The End of Legacy Reporting Tools

With the introduction of native email storage, Salesforce is retiring the legacy reporting tools that were built to work around the off-platform email limitation. The Activity Dashboard, Activity Metrics, and Activity 360 Reporting will eventually be phased out as organizations migrate to the new model.

This transition represents Salesforce's commitment to treating email activity as first-class platform data rather than maintaining separate systems for different activity types.

Maximizing the Value of Email Activities

Organizations implementing this feature should consider:

• Developing Comprehensive Activity Reporting: Create dashboards that provide complete visibility into all customer touchpoints, including emails, calls, and meetings.
• Building Automated Workflows: Use the newly available email data to trigger relevant business processes, such as lead scoring updates or opportunity progression.
• Training Sales Teams: Ensure your sales team understands how email activities now integrate with other Salesforce features and reporting.
• Monitoring Storage Usage: Implement processes to monitor data storage consumption and establish retention policies as needed.

Looking Forward

The ability to use emails like real activities in Salesforce represents a significant evolution in how sales teams can leverage their communication data. By treating emails as native platform records, organizations can build more sophisticated automation, gain deeper insights into customer interactions, and create more comprehensive reporting.

For sales teams that have long struggled with the limitations of Einstein Activity Capture, this feature finally delivers the platform integration they've been requesting.

If you need help implementing Sync Email as Salesforce Activity or want to explore how this feature can enhance your sales processes, reach out to Concept’s Salesforce Consulting team for expert guidance.