There are two kinds of records in Salesforce: identity-based records and transaction-based records. Identity-based records include Leads, Contacts and Accounts. Transaction-based records include Opportunities, Cases, Campaigns, Project, Matters and Policies.
Syncing emails to identity-based records like Leads and Contacts is relatively easy. Using an email address, a Salesforce email capture app can automatically match and upload an email to the right record(s). Email address matching is the most common way of syncing emails to Salesforce records.
Syncing emails to Salesforce Opportunities or other transaction-based record types can be more difficult
Whereas there is a one-to-one correlation between a person’s email address and their identity, an individual can have multiple Cases/Opportunities open for the same client at the same time or can work on multiple projects at one time. Projects may include parties who are not in Salesforce because they are vendors or consultants so their emails would have no way of syncing based on email address.
Roll-up or Roll-down
There are number of ways to match emails to transaction- or project-based record types like Opportunities — records that have a start and finish date and some expected value which can be used to monitor pipeline. The most common method is roll-up or roll-down. With roll-up or roll-down if an email syncs to a ‘primary’ record like a Lead or Contact, then it will automatically roll-up or down to a secondary record like an Account, Opportunity or Case. Roll-ups or roll-downs are based on a standard Salesforce feature called Parent-Child related links.
Sync emails by words or numbers
This can be done using the Match My Email custom scripting language which is available with every subscription of the app. Typically, the standard Name field of an Opportunity is used. The Match My Email tool can match emails to any record type based on 2-word, 3-word, 4-word and/or 5-word strings. Two-word strings such as Project ABC or XZY Matter or EFG Underwriting are often used by consultants, lawyers and financial professionals. The Salesforce user simply types the Name of the Opportunity into the Subject Line of an outbound email and from that moment one every email in the thread with the client will be captured automatically in Salesforce.
Three-word strings work well for real estate agents. Properties can be named based on street address like 10 Maple Street. By typing the Property Name into the Subject Line of an outbound email that email and any responses to it will be precision matched to the Property record.
Match My Email includes manual syncing to tools that enable a user to attach an email to any record or records with a click or two. The manual tool helps users control where emails get stored in Salesforce.
Syncing emails by words or number or tags and Name field is a way to take your Salesforce ORG to the next level. Name field matching is very precise and easy to implement. Plus it is intuitive.
