How Email Activity Matches with Other Records

User Records

Email addresses are checked against active users. If there aren’t any active users, the connected account owner is used. If no active users or connected account owners match, inactive users are considered. If still no users match, the email addresses are considered as possible matches for contacts and leads.

API-only and users associated with automated processes aren’t considered.

Note If an email matches to a user and also a contact, person account, or a lead record, the email is matched to the user record. Make sure that contact, person account, and lead records don’t include email addresses that belong to your users.

Contact and Lead Records

Email addresses that don’t match user records are reviewed to match contact or lead records. Contacts are reviewed for matches before leads. Only one contact or lead record is matched to each email address on a message.

If multiple contact or lead records have the same email address, this criteria determines the match.

1. Partner account (if turned on): The contact is associated with an account record that matches the partner account.
2. Account owner: The contact record’s related account is owned by the matched user.
3. Contact owner: The contact is owned by the matched user.
4. Privacy check: Private contacts not owned by a matched user are excluded to protect data visibility.
5. Recent activity: A contact with the most recent LastActivityDate is prioritized.
6. Last modified: As a final selection tiebreaker, the contact with the most recent LastModifiedDate is matched.

If an address remains unmatched, it’s suggested as a new contact. If no new contact is created, the address is stored on the email message record without a relation.

Account Records

Account records that are related to matched contacts are considered. If multiple accounts qualify, this criteria determines which record matches to the email message.

1. Partner account (if turned on): Only partner accounts are considered.
2. Most contacts: The account record with the greatest number of associated contacts is selected.
3. Recent activity: An account with the most recent LastActivityDate is prioritized.
4. Last modified: As a final selection tiebreaker, the account with the most recent LastModifiedDate is matched.

If an email can’t be matched to an account by using an existing contact, the domain from the email address is checked against the website field on all account records. An account is matched if the email domain (or subdomain) is found in the website field value. For example, the email address example@salesforce.com matches the website field values www.salesforce.com and www.help.salesforce.com.

Opportunity Records

After email activity matches to accounts, opportunity records are considered for matching. If an email already matched to an account also matches with an opportunity, the opportunity relationship takes precedence. The direct relationship to the account is replaced with a relationship to the opportunity.

Opportunity matches are determined by this criteria.

1. Close date: The close date is 60 days or more after the email activity occurs.
2. Owner: The opportunity owner is included in the email.
3. Account owner: The related account is owned by a matched user.
4. Created date: The opportunity was created no more than 60 days after the email activity date.
5. Activity window: The activity date falls between the opportunity’s create and close dates.
6. Status: An open opportunity is selected before a closed one.
7. Close date: An opportunity with an earlier close date is selected before one with a later date.
8. Recent activity: An opportunity with the most recent LastActivityDate is prioritized.
9. Last modified: As a final selection tiebreaker, the opportunity with the most recent LastModifiedDate is matched.

How Matching Works

The Activities: Match Email to Records flow controls the matching process. The flow automatically triggers when Einstein Activity Capture or Salesforce Inbox captures a new email message. These four default flow actions run in this order.

1. Get Users from Email Address
2. Get Contacts and Leads from Email Addresses
3. Get Account and Opportunity from Email Addresses
4. Create Email Activity with Associations

Emails sent from the Salesforce Email Composer in Lightning Experience or the email application don’t use flow-based matching. They’re associated with the open user, contact, or lead records. The Activities: Match Email to Records flow doesn’t overwrite any manual association between an email and an activity.

Flow and platform limitations apply to Activities: Match Email to Salesforce Activity, including usage-based entitlements, per-transaction flow limits, and object access requirements.

Important Activities Match core actions don’t support system-run flows or automated process users. Activities Match core actions are executed in the context of the user, who is also referred to as the “context user.” The flow has the same access level as the context user.

Customize Matching Rules

To customize matching, edit the default flow actions by using Flow Builder. Select the Activities Match category, and search for the appropriate action. For example, add criteria to make sure that emails match to a customer account record instead of a partner account.

Use Apex to create additional custom matching rules for specific use cases. For example:

• Block certain emails from being logged based on information available in the flow.
• Use custom email addresses instead of standard email addresses.
• Skip or change the object records to match and use, for example, custom objects.
• Create your own tiebreaker for when the flow matches an email to multiple records.