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Connect Salesforce and Microsoft® Exchange Using an Exchange Service Account
To connect Salesforce to your company’s Microsoft Exchange server using a service account, you and your Exchange administrator have to complete several steps, both from Salesforce and from your Exchange server.
Required Editions
| Available to sync records from: Salesforce Classic, Lightning Experience, and the Salesforce mobile app |
| Available to set up from: Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions with Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Lightning Platform |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To set up a service account to communicate with Lightning Sync: | Administrative access to your company’s Exchange server |
| To access and edit Lightning Sync Setup | Customize Application AND Manage Users AND Manage Lightning Sync |
Starting in Winter ‘21, Lightning Sync isn’t available to new Salesforce customers. Use Einstein Activity Capture to sync events, contacts, and emails between your connected account and Salesforce.
If you have Lightning Sync, use the migration tool to move to Einstein Activity Capture before Lightning Sync retires in April 2027.
If you use Lightning Sync with Microsoft Office 365 and Exchange Web Service (EWS) as your authentication method, complete your migration by August 2026 to avoid service disruption. In October 2026, Microsoft retires EWS for Microsoft 365 and replaces it with Microsoft Graph API. After migrating to Einstein Activity Capture, upgrade to the Microsoft Graph authentication method. See Upgrade Microsoft Office 365 Authentication Method to Microsoft Graph in Einstein Activity Capture.
This change affects all orgs except those using Government Cloud.
- Prepare Your Microsoft Exchange Server for Lightning Sync
To set up Lightning Sync using the service account connection method, enable these settings on your Microsoft® Exchange server: Exchange Web Services, Exchange Autodiscover Service, and Basic or NTLM authentication. - Set Up a Microsoft Exchange Service Account to Communicate with Lightning Sync
To set up Lightning Sync using a service account, create an Exchange service account with impersonation rights for the mailbox of each Lightning Sync user. - Run the Microsoft® Remote Connectivity Analyzer with Lightning Sync Parameters
Salesforce admins can run the Remote Connectivity Analyzer—the free web-based tool provided by Microsoft—to confirm whether Salesforce admins and their Exchange admins have set up Lightning Sync for Microsoft Exchange successfully. Or, admins can run the Remote Connectivity Analyzer if Lightning Sync for Microsoft Exchange was syncing reps’ items successfully, but suddenly stops. Use the parameters provided to run the test for Lightning Sync. - Set Up Salesforce to Communicate with Microsoft® Exchange Using a Service Account
After running the Remote Connectivity Analyzer, log in to Salesforce to enable Lightning Sync for Microsoft Exchange and provide your service account credentials.
