Einstein Activity Capture

A Guide and Benefits of Einstein Activity Capture in Salesforce

Einstein Activity Capture (EAC) is a productivity-boosting tool that automatically keeps data between Salesforce and your email and calendar applications up to date. To keep data up to date between applications, Einstein Activity Capture focuses on three types of data: emails, events, and contacts.

With Einstein Activity Capture your email and events are automatically related to Salesforce records. Contacts and events are synced between the connected accounts of Email Calendar applications and Salesforce

Three types of Email and Calendar software programs used in Einstein Activity Capture

Admin can go to Setup -> Einstein Activity Capture and start configuring it. Below image shows Admin configuration page of EAC in Salesforce, these are the three types of Email and Calendar software programs used in EAC, which can perform Email sending, Calendar event marking and alerts and Contact addition and maintenance. These processes will be synced with Salesforce. 

In the next page, admin has to define Both or Uni directional updates. This defines which change affects which. For example If Both directions chosen any change happens in Email and Calendar softwares will sync data in Salesforce and Vice Versa. This is how EAC maintains keeping data up to date.

Three types of data, Einstein Activity Capture (EAC) focuses:

After Admin configured EAC, Sales reps have to accept EAC in his login. Then below things happen.

1.Email 

Emails that Einstein Activity Capture users send and receive are automatically added to the activity timeline only, not as Salesforce records. This activity timeline helps to develop email insights.

EAC will relate an email to a salesforce record, this process varies based on the record in salesforce. For an email to be associated with a record, the email must occur within a specific date range and configurations written by Admin. Not all emails will be considered by EAC.

So the final point is EAC won’t add records in Salesforce for emails, it will automatically add activity timelines of business accounts, person accounts, contacts, contracts, leads, opportunities, and quotes.

2.Events

Events are not similar to Email data in Salesforce, when events move from the connected account of Email and Calendar software to Salesforce, the events become Salesforce records and appear on the My Events in Calendar in Salesforce. The events are available in standard reporting and Salesforce Platform capabilities. 

Depending on our settings, events that Einstein Activity Capture captures, also get added automatically to the activity timeline of additional records: opportunities, contracts, and quotes, But these are not Salesforce records.

3.Contacts

As like events, contacts which moves from the connected account of Email and Calendar software to Salesforce, also becomes Salesforce records and are available in standard reporting and Salesforce platform capabilities

Frequently asked questions in Einstein Activity Capture

1.What is the period of Einstein Activity capture?

Users with a licensed Einstein Activity Capture account get access to activity data for up to 180 days. Users of the Einstein Activity Capture Standard can view activity data for the previous 90 days.

2.How long does Einstein Activity capture take?

It may take up to 24 hours to sync the first time. All previously captured emails and events are erased from the activity timeline when Einstein Activity Capture is turned off

3.How much default license of Einstein Activity capture comes with Sales cloud license?

Sales Cloud comes with only 100 Einstein Activity Capture licenses.

4.What is the Activities dashboard?

Einstein Activity Capture includes access to the Activities dashboard, which is built on Tableau CRM. The Activities dashboard shows a summary of your sales activities, including ones added manually to Salesforce and ones added by Einstein Activity Capture. This dashboard is must because you know that emails are not stored as salesforce records, so standard reports are not possible.

5.What is Activity Metrics

Activity Metrics in Einstein Activity Capture, gives you the complete picture about your activity data. 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

6.Will attachments also be saved in Salesforce?

Einstein Activity capture won’t capture attachments of email and events and save in Salesforce. Similarly if mails sent with attachments in Salesforce, those attachments won’t be synced with Email and Calendar softwares.

7.What are the benefits of Salesforce Einstein Activity Capture?

• Email Insights

Since the email data is processed by the Einstein AI layer when it passes through Einstein Activity Capture, Salesforce can provide users with helpful information about the emails they’ve logged, such as a suggested follow up action based on the email content or assistance in crafting a more tailored response to a client.

• Connect Email Account to Send Email

When you send emails through Salesforce, they usually go through Salesforce’s email servers, which add an “on behalf of” line to the From field.

Recommended Actions is a new Einstein feature included in the Winter 2019 edition, and it reveals crucial relationships within their networks (i.e., fellow Salesforce users). Einstein displays the number of interactions a user has had with a Lead or Contact, allowing you to determine whether or not engaging with that person will be beneficial.

• Metrics of Activity

Einstein Activity Capture’s estimated activity metrics, this is one of the best features. Salesforce calculates crucial metrics like Last Activity Date, Inactive Days, and Last Call Date when Einstein AI analyses activity data.

• Graph of Activities

The Activity Dashboard shows a summary of sales activities that have been manually entered into Salesforce and those captured using Einstein Activity Capture.

8.What are Einstein Activity Capture’s drawbacks?

• Data stored in a offsite AWS server farm, not in Salesforce directly 
• In Einstein Activity Capture, users cannot delete emails. It is only possible if you are a System Administrator.
• If you disable Einstein Activity Capture, EAC will remove all action captures from record timelines in Salesforce.
• Additional licensing costs (e.g., Sales Cloud comes with only 100 Einstein Activity Capture licenses).
•  Only the initial 24 months’ activity data is preserved and presented.