Logging Emails from Gmail

Identify related records and quickly log your outbound and inbound emails to Salesforce!

Elijah Ezeji-Okoye avatar
Written by Elijah Ezeji-Okoye
Updated over a week ago

Groove's email logging functionality in Gmail is designed to expedite the email logging process so that you can spend less time logging and more time prospecting. As you write or receive emails, Groove will suggest related Salesforce records based on the external email addresses on the email. You can either log your emails to Groove's suggested records or manually search for your own.

Email Logging Settings

Your Email Logging Settings live in your Groove Extension Settings, which can be accessed by clicking the three vertical dots in the upper-right corner of your Omnibar, then selecting 'Options' from the dropdown menu. These settings determine whether and how Groove will try to log your Google Calendar events to Salesforce by default.

Auto-Log All Emails

When the Auto-Log All Emails option is enabled, any email that you send or receive will automatically log back to Salesforce. When you create a new email in Gmail, the Log checkbox in the Groove for Gmail compose bar will be preselected. You will not have an option of disabling logging for your emails by deselecting the Log checkbox.

This option is the same as the Background Email Sync setting in the Groove web app, meaning enabling or disabling one will correspondingly enable or disable the other.

Note: If this setting is grayed out for you, your Groove admin team may have disabled background email sync for your account by:

Auto-Log Only Outbound Events

When the Auto-Log Only Outbound Emails setting is enabled, Groove will default to attempting to log any email the you create in Gmail by preselecting the Log checkbox in the Groove for Gmail compose bar. If you decide you do not want the email to log to Salesforce, you can deselect the Log checkbox. Any inbound emails you receive will not be logged automatically, and would need to be logged manually from within the thread.

When a you create a new email with Auto-Log All Outbound Emails enabled, the email will default to being set to log.

With this setting, you can uncheck the “Log” button in the Groove for Gmail compose bar and the email will not log.

Note: If this setting is grayed out for you, your Groove admin team may have enforced the Background Email Sync setting for your account via Domain Wide Enablement.

Manually Log Events

When the Manually Log Emails setting is enabled, Groove will not try log any emails that you create by default. When you create a new email from Gmail, the Log checkbox in the Groove for Gmail compose bar will be unselected. If you decide you do want the email to log to Salesforce, you can manually select the Log checkbox. Any inbound emails would also need to be manually logged to Salesforce.

When a you create a new email with Manually Log Emails enabled, the Log button in the Groove for Gmail compose bar will be unselected by default.

With this setting, you can still check the Log button in the Groove for Gmail compose bar and the email will log when the user sends the email.

Note: If this setting is grayed out for you, your Groove admin team may have enforced the Background Email Sync setting for your account via Domain Wide Enablement.

Logging New Outbound Emails

When you first create a new email in Gmail, you will see that the Log option in the Groove for Gmail compose bar is either selected or unselected based on your Email Logging settings. Regardless of whether you have the email configured to log or not, as you begin to add recipients to your email, you will see that the 'Name' and 'Related To' fields in the Groove for Gmail compose bar begin to populate with Salesforce records. Groove's metalogic is fetching Salesforce for records it identifies as being related to the email addresses you've input into the "To" and "CC" fields to help you attach your email to the right records as quickly as possible.

Groove's Suggested Records

Groove suggests related Contact or Lead records by scanning the Email field on Contacts and Leads your team has in your Salesforce instance. Groove also scans the Email 2 field if your team has enabled Alternative Email Matching.

Groove suggested related WhatID records based on your team's Related-To Lookup Logic setting. By default, Groove will attach the email to all the highest-scored WhatID record.*

*Note: If your team has Best Match Email Logging disabled, Groove will attach your email to all related WhatID records by default.

Because Groove is logging your email into Salesforce, Salesforce's native limitations on Activity logging are respected. The main limitations include:

  • Contacts and Leads cannot both be in the Name field on an Activity record;

  • there can be up to 50 Contacts in the Name field of an Activity record if Salesforce's Shared Activities is enabled;

  • there can only ever be one Lead record in the Name field.

Given these limitations, if Groove identifies a combination of Contacts and Leads that are related to your email recipients, Groove will always default to logging your email to the Contacts.

Search & Select

If you want to review all of Groove's suggested records and customize to which to attach your email, you can click into the Name or Related To field in the Groove for Gmail compose bar to open up the Search & Select Mini. You can also use the search bar to search for other records that Groove may not have found. Here, you can check off to which records you want to log your email – whether it's some Groove's suggested records, some records you've searched, or a combination of both.

Activity Fields

If your team has enabled the Additional Fields for Email Logging setting, you can access and complete some additional Task fields from the Activity Fields section of the Groove logging modal in Gmail.

Log This Thread

The Log This Thread option in the lower-left corner of the Email logging modal in Gmail will activate thread logging for your email. If you enable Log This Thread, any subsequent emails in the same thread as the email you're sending will log back to Salesforce as separate Task record automatically, and will be attached to the same records as the initial email.

Finalizing the Logging

When you're ready to log your email, you can send it using the Gmail Send button. If the log button is selected, then your email will log subsequent to sending. You will see a snackbar message in the bottom left corner confirming the logging was successful or alerting you to a logging error.

Logging Emails with Schedule Send

If you send your email with Schedule Send, then your email will log automatically when it eventually sends out. It will not log right after you schedule the email.

Logging Existing Emails

If there's an email in your Inbox or Sent folder that you want to log, you can do that by clicking into the email and using the Log button on the right-hand side of the email.

Quick Log

To quick log the email, you can click the Log button once. This will log the email to the records Groove has suggested as matches to the external recipients on the email. Hovering over the Log button will give you a preview of what records those would be.

Log This Email

If you want to customize the records that this email would be attached to when logged to Salesforce, you can click the downward-facing arrow to the right of the Log button and select the Log This Email option. This will open the Search & Select email from which you can manually choose records from Groove's suggestion list and ones you've searched.

Log This Thread

When you use Log This Thread on an existing one, one Salesforce Task will be logged for that email and all emails prior to it. Each subsequent email in the thread would then be logged to Salesforce automatically as an additional Task record. These additional Task records would attach to the same related records that had been selected when Log This Thread was used.

Reviewing Your Logged Emails

Each email you log to Salesforce will be created as a Task record in Salesforce. These Tasks can be found in the Activity section of any of the records to which the email has been attached.

The following information should populate on your logged email Tasks by default.

Field Name

API Name

Value

Assigned To

Name of the internal Salesforce user who sent or received the email

Comments

Contains the body of the email

Created By

Name of the Groove user* who logged or synced the email

*If using Domain Wide Enablement, this field will be set to the name of the Salesforce Service Account

Due Date

Contains the date the email was sent

Is Created By Groove

Always set to "true" for all emails logged or synced by Groove

Name

Names of the Contact or Lead record(s) to which the email was attached

Related To

Name of the WhatID record to which the email was attached

Replied*

Set to "true" if Groove detected a reply in-thread for the email

*Email open tracking must have been enabled for the corresponding email

Status

Always set to "Completed"

Subject

Subject line of the email in syntax “Email: << [subject line]” for inbound emails or “Email: >> [subject line]” for outbound emails.

Task Subtype

Always set to "Email"

Times Clicked*

Contains the number of link click events Groove has detected for the email to date

*Email open and link click tracking must have been enabled for the corresponding email

Times Opened*

Contains the number of email open events Groove has detected for the email to date

*Email open tracking must have been enabled for the corresponding email

Type

The value set as the "Send Email Default" in your team's Type field picklist on the Task object

Your logged emails will also increment your email activity count in Groove Analytics, found here. More information on the insights into your email activities Groove Analytics provides can be found here.

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