# Salesforce Email and Calendar Integrations

**Alexey Panteleev**  
March 26, 2022

Over the years, Salesforce produced multiple email and calendar integration solutions, i.e. Salesforce for Outlook, Lightning for Outlook/Gmail, Inbox app, Lightning sync, plus kept changing their names so that their users often were confused about the actual offerings.

As of March 2022, [Salesforce documentation](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.sfo_vs_email_connect.htm) explains what they offer in terms of the Outlook and Gmail integrations:

Essentially, the old _Salesforce for Outlook_ addin is gone (“thanks”), _Lightning_ Sync is no longer available for new users, and Salesforce users are offered just these two apps, with some upgrade options:

1. _Outlook/Gmail Integration_, the free Outlook/Gmail addin, formerly known as _Lightning for Outlook/Gmail_. The _Inbox_ license unlocks productivity capabilities, like insert availability, track email opens. Those used to be offered in a separate RelateIQ/Inbox app.
2. Einstein Activity Capture (EAC), a new email/calendar/contacts sync engine replacing Lightning Sync. Salesforce is encouraging its clients to move to EAC.

[Here is an older article](https://adminhero.com/2019/08/19/lightning-sync-vs-einstein-activity-capture-battle-of-the-salesforce-calendar-integration-tools/) that had a good overview of EAC when it just came out.

It seems to me their offerings have finally converged to something more intuitive: an engine for automatic data entry (email, calendar, contacts syncing) and an inbox productivity addin for Outlook/Gmail users. The benefits of these solutions are well understood these days so I mainly wanted to highlight the key limitations:

### Architecture

- Activities cannot be reported on by standard Salesforce reports because EAC stores them outside of Salesforce.
- For the same reason, you can not use the Related List view for activities.
- Limited retention period and activity purging upon EAC license deactivation.
- Syncing is limited to mailboxes in just one G suite Org, Office 365 Org, MS Exchange server.

### Customizations

- It is impossible to custom configure automatic emails/events syncing to opportunities, cases, and other objects.
- No advanced sync settings are available, like default field values, calendar/folder filters, additional email/phone/address fields.
- Email/event attachments are not supported and will not be synced to Salesforce.
- Recurring Outlook/Gmail events will not be synced.
- Can not sync contacts from the default inbox folder as deduplication is not available.

### Pricing

- Free version does not include the activity dashboard for activity metrics.
- With the free version, a maximum of [6 months](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.aac_standard_differences.htm) of captured activity data is stored.
- The free version is limited to [100 users](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.aac_standard_differences.htm).
- The full version of EAC costs $50 a month.
- The _Inbox_ feature costs $25 a month.

## Final thoughts: customizations

Most enterprise-level customers we work with require some advanced sync configurations, plus their sales teams usually have existing sales reports against the standard activities. EAC seems unsuitable for such organizations.

[Yoxel Sync](https://helpdocs.yoxel.com/salesforce/yoxel-sync-custom-sync-solution-for-outlook-and-gmail) and [Yoxel Outlook/Gmail addons](https://helpdocs.yoxel.com/salesforce-inbox/yoxel-outlook-and-gmail-addons) provide advanced syncing settings and customization capabilities. Check out the recent blog post highlighting the new [Email/Event to anything](/content/blog/salesforce-email-to-anything/index.html) features. Reach out to us from [this page](/content/contact/index.html) if you want to learn more.