How Salesforce Email-to-Case Matches an Incoming Email to an Existing Contact Record

Email-to-Case Contact Matching Logic

Review the following rules to understand how Email-to-Case selects a Contact or why the Contact field may be blank on a new case.

How Email-to-Case Queries Contact Records

• Email-to-Case searches all indexed Email fields on the Contact object, including both standard and custom email fields — not just the standard Email field.
• When a match is found in any email address field, Email-to-Case assigns that Contact to the new case.

When the Contact and Account Fields Are Left Blank

• If two or more Contacts share the same email address, Email-to-Case leaves both the Contact and Account fields blank on the new case.
• If no matching Contact is found, Email-to-Case leaves the Contact and Account fields blank, but populates the Web Email and Web Name fields with the sender's information.
• If the email was sent from a web-based email address that has no associated Contact record in Salesforce, the Contact field is blank.

Person Accounts

• Email-to-Case only associates the case with the Contact field when matching with Person Account records.

Custom Email Fields

• Email-to-Case supports custom email fields on the Contact object. If a secondary custom email field on a different Contact record contains the same email address as another Contact, the system does not associate the case to either Contact.

Viewing the Originating Email on a Case

• To help the person handling the case look up the originating email, add the email-related list to the Case Record Page Layout.