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Logging Calendar events from Outlook to Salesforce
Logging Calendar events from Outlook to Salesforce

With Background Calendar Sync, your meetings with prospects and customers will get automatically logged to Salesforce

Sanket Karamchandani avatar
Written by Sanket Karamchandani
Updated over a week ago

One of the most important aspects of a meeting with a prospect or customer is tracking it in Salesforce to make sure the event details, attendees, and conversation are captured. With Groove's Calendar Sync, you can let Groove take care of logging these events for you, so that you can focus on the meeting and the customer.

Note: This feature is currently in Beta. Please ask your admin to reach out to your CSM if you'd like to have it enabled

Groove <> Salesforce Event Logging Rules

Based on your settings for logging Outlook calendar events to Salesforce, as well as your team's settings, each event will get logged to Salesforce and attached to the contacts or leads on the meeting.

Additionally, based on your team's Related-To Lookup logic, the event will also be automatically related to the appropriate opportunity or case associated with the person you're meeting with.

  • Any event where the guest list includes someone in Salesforce will be logged to Salesforce for you, unless it is marked as "private" on your calendar. This can include an event that you created, or an event that you were invited to. This also includes recurring events. More info on how Groove works with recurring events

  • If your team has "Only Sync CRM Related Events" enabled, the event will only log to Salesforce if there is a contact or lead on it. Otherwise, you can have internal meetings logged to Salesforce if your Salesforce admin has disabled "Only Sync CRM Related Events"

  • Any updates made in your Outlook calendar for an event that is logged in Salesforce (such as an update to the time, date, title, etc.) will also be reflected in the Salesforce event

  • If a meeting that was synced to Salesforce is deleted from your Outlook calendar, the event remains in Salesforce, and Groove adds "[Canceled]" to the beginning of the title

  • (For the BETA): Recurring events deleted from your Outlook calendar are not updated in Salesforce

Setting up Calendar Logging

Accessing Groove in your Outlook Calendar

In order to use Groove's Calendar Logging features, open your Outlook Calendar and follow these instructions:

  • Create a new event, or open an existing event in your calendar

  • For Outlook Desktop users, you will see Groove in your top ribbon

  • For Outlook web users, you will see Groove if you click the 3 horizontal dot menu at the top of the event, in which your add-ins live

Note: If you do not see Groove in your Outlook calendar yet, please reach out to your CSM

Notes on Logging Events

  • Logging outbound events can take between 5-10 minutes to sync to Salesforce. Logging an existing meeting in your calendar will log immediately to Salesforce

  • The Outlook calendar => Salesforce calendar integration is one-directional. This means that events created or updated in your Salesforce calendar do not sync back to your Outlook calendar.

  • Because Outlook events also create an email in your inbox, there will also be a synced email (if you are using Email Sync) with the details of the event.

  • If a non-recurring event is logged in Salesforce, and you delete that event from your Outlook calendar, Groove will update the title of that event in Salesforce, to show "[Canceled] - Your title here"

  • For the BETA - If a recurring event is logged in Salesforce, and you delete the series from your Outlook calendar, the series does not get updated or deleted from Salesforce

Settings

In your Groove Settings, you have 3 options related to logging calendar events to Salesforce:

Auto-log all calendar events:

Auto-logging your calendar events to Salesforce from Outlook calendar works very similarly to how "auto-log all emails" works, with a few specifics related to calendar events. If you select this option, you'll see in your Outlook Calendar that the "Log to Salesforce" box is checked and grayed out, because all of your events will be getting logged to Salesforce for you, as long as they meet your team's rules for logging:
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If there is an event on your calendar with someone in Salesforce, that event will be automatically logged to Salesforce for you. Groove will match the guest list with contacts and leads in Salesforce to relate the created event to the appropriate records. This can be an event that you create and invite contacts/leads, or an event that you are invited to, where the guest list includes contacts/leads.

Auto-log only outbound events

If you choose this option, any event that you create (or edit) will automatically have the "Log to Salesforce" box checked by default, so that when you send out the invitation, the event will get logged to Salesforce for you, as long as it applies to your team's logging rules:
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You can to uncheck the box for the events that you do not want logged to Salesforce. Additionally, since this setting is not automatically syncing all events, events that you are invited to will not be automatically logged to Salesforce. You can still manually log any event that you are invited to from your Outlook calendar.

Manually log events

If you choose this option, any event that you create (or edit) will have the "Log to Salesforce" box unchecked by default:

You can check the box for any event that you would like to log to Salesforce. If the box is checked when you send out the invite, Groove will log that event to Salesforce as long as it matches your team's logging rules.


Similar to "Auto-log only outbound events", this setting will not automatically log events that you are invited to, to Salesforce. You can still manually log any event from your Outlook calendar.

Logging individual existing events

There are a couple of scenarios in which an event on your Outlook calendar is not logged to Salesforce:

  • If you do not have "Auto-log all calendar events" enabled

  • If you chose not to log an event at the time you sent out the invitation

In these cases, you can always log the event to Salesforce after it is created. The way to do this is:

  1. Open the Outlook calendar event you'd like to log

  2. Open Groove (for the Outlook Desktop application, "Open Groove" is in the Ribbon at the top; for Outlook on web, "Open Groove" is in the 3-dot menu at the top)

  3. Click "Log to Salesforce":

Note: If there is any error with logging the event to Salesforce, you will see an appropriate message above the "Log to Salesforce" button
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Troubleshooting Logging Issues

There are times when your events fail to log to Salesforce, for a a few different reasons. The most common of those are:

  • Your Groove account has lost connection to your Salesforce account. If this happens, Groove will prompt you to re-login to Salesforce

  • All recipients of the event are all internal, where the email domain is blocklisted from logging

  • There are no related records found to log the event to

  • There is a validation rule in your Salesforce preventing the event from being logged

If these common reasons do not apply, please send support@groove.co an email with the Event ID of the missing event, and our team will investigate further!

To obtain the Event ID of an event, open the event in your calendar, open the Groove add-in, click the Settings icon in the bottom right, scroll down in the Settings, and double click the Event ID in the bottom left of the Settings to copy it to your clipboard:


Admin Configuration

Salesforce Admins only

For admins, there are a few settings that allow you to configure the way Calendar Sync works for your team(s). The settings below can only be modified by a Salesforce admin, and can be found in both Groove, under (Manage My Org > Profile Settings) and Salesforce (Setup > Custom Settings > Manage Groove Settings):

  • Allow Background Calendar Sync: Determines whether the users in that Salesforce profile should be allowed to sync their Outlook calendar events to Salesforce or not. We recommend that this setting is enabled.

  • Only Sync CRM Related Events: Determines whether all (non-private) events, or only "CRM Related" events are synced to Salesforce for the users in that profile. A "CRM Related" event is one that has at least one contact or lead in the guest list. A non "CRM Related" event could be an internal meeting with the Sales Team. We recommend that this setting is enabled.

  • Don't Track RSVP Status* (this advanced setting is only found in Salesforce: Setup > Custom Settings > Manage Groove Settings): Determines whether contacts and leads get added to the Invitee list in the Salesforce event. We recommend that this setting is disabled.

  • Related-To Lookup Logic: Determines how events (and emails) logged to Salesforce get related to opportunities and cases. The most common setting here is the default, which is to relate the activities to "All Open Opportunities", which means that Groove will log the event to what we find is the most relevant opportunity along with the contact(s). Additional info on Related-To Lookup Logic.

Groove Admins and Salesforce Admins

  • In Manage My Org > Users, a Groove admin can select a user, then click Actions > Update Calendar Sync to either enable or disable the setting for any given user.

Read Previous: Salesforce context in your Outlook Inbox
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