Contact Sync

Which Contacts Sync and How Are They Matched?

When Lightning Sync runs its initial contact sync, it checks to see whether contacts with matching email addresses exist in both Salesforce and Microsoft or Google. If email addresses match, the two contacts are mapped to each other and begin to sync. If there isn’t a match, Lightning Sync checks whether there’s a match between the first and last name. If there’s a match, then those contacts are mapped to sync. If there isn’t a match, a new contact is created, and those two contacts are mapped to sync. If multiple contacts have matching email addresses, Lightning Sync chooses a contact that meets the matching criteria your Salesforce admin chose in your sync configuration. Matching criteria options include most recent activity, last updated, and oldest creation date. Those contacts are then mapped to sync.

Lightning Sync also checks for a match between a contact’s company name in Microsoft or Google and an account’s company name in Salesforce. If there’s a match, the Salesforce account is related to the synced contact in Salesforce. If there isn’t a match, the contact is added to the Unresolved Items list in Salesforce.

After the initial sync, Lightning Sync periodically checks whether there are new or updated contacts that require syncing. There are various factors that can impact sync wait time, such as:

• When many users are set up to start syncing around the same time
• When sync is pending for a significant number of contacts

For example, at a large company, an extended wait time is likely upon the first sync.

Lightning Sync can also sync Salesforce person accounts with Microsoft or Google contacts. Other than the explicitly stated differences, person accounts sync like contacts do. See Person Account Sync.

To learn more about your sync direction and other sync settings, talk to your Salesforce admin. To familiarize yourself with features, see Learn About Lightning Sync for Microsoft® Exchange Features or Learn About Lightning Sync for Google Features.

Note Contact sync doesn’t support Outlook categories, so contacts labeled with a Salesforce_Sync category that don’t exist in a contacts subfolder of the same name don’t sync with Salesforce. To avoid this issue, disable contact categories and select the Salesforce_Sync folder for new contacts in Outlook. See EAC - New Contacts Created In Outlook with ‘Salesforce_Sync’ Category Do Not Sync to Salesforce.

Unresolved Contacts

Sometimes Lightning Sync can’t match contacts or accounts automatically. When that happens, Lightning Sync lists partial matches on the Unresolved Items page in your Personal Settings.

To match unresolved contacts, decide whether you want to sync the Microsoft or Google contact to an existing Salesforce contact, or create a contact. Or you can update the Salesforce account with the information required to find a match, such as first name, last name, company name, or email address.

If you’re set up to sync both ways, we recommend creating relevant accounts in Salesforce before your admin rolls out contact sync. Otherwise, if you don’t resolve unmatched Salesforce contacts before the next sync cycle, Lightning Sync removes the company from Microsoft or Google contacts.