Enhanced Email for Salesforce Summer ’16

In reviewing the upcoming Summer ’16 Release and its available notes, there are a good number of features we’re looking forward to seeing in Salesforce – not the least of which are all the ongoing updates to the Lightning Experience interface. One in particular is a bit buried and its advantages might not be immediately obvious: Enhanced Email.

Email as an Object

Enhanced Email breaks email out as its own object in Salesforce – just like Accounts, Contacts, Activities, Campaigns and so on. Currently email messages get saved with Task records and can get buried amongst them within the Salesforce platform: email acts on various objects depending on how its respective interface and logic are defined. There are not many ways in which to further, easily customize email functions.

With the shift to email becoming its own data object, developers can control a good bit more about email and better tailor it to an organization’s needs.

Using this new object, you can send stored email from the new Lighting Experience Email Composer. Classic supports this as well, according to the latest release notes from Salesforce.com

On the data backend side of things, developers can now relate individual email records to multiple contacts, leads, and users. Likewise email can be related to a single record within Opportunities, Campaigns, Cases, Accounts, or Person Accounts.

Beyond the data implications, Enhanced Email allows developers to build business logic driven by email. They can use all controls they can apply to objects today: custom fields, workflows, triggers, page layouts and so on.

Email Integration in Salesforce

Email integration is a key reason many of our clients turn to Salesforce in the first place. They often need more than what their email client (often Outlook) can deliver. Their teams would like to customize certain aspects of email management within their organization. To date, email has often been a black box. Any significant customization has required the use of third-party integrations, AppExchange apps, and so on.

There are some caveats to consider – email records will have to be of a common record type. For example, you won’t be able to create different kinds of email and display them with representative layouts, their own picklists, and so on. Secondly workflow rules can only update fields on Cases. You’ll need to build triggers or other mechanisms to update data in other objects directly from email.

Even with those caveats, with Enhanced Email we gain a good bit of freedom to add fields, create custom layouts, better control workflows and more. Email, as its own dedicated object, it now able to take its place as one of the core customizable building blocks within the platform.

We think this one largely under-the-hood feature opens some new possibilities with what we can deliver with Salesforce. If your organization relies on email or has integrated with other technologies to add functionality, explore the Summer ’16 Release capabilities.

Learn More About the Lightning Platform:

• What is Lightning?
• Lightning Experience Features
• Lightning Under the Hood
• Making the Move to Lightning
• Spring ’16 Release Updates

Launch Lightning for Your Organization

If you’re interested in making the shift from Classic to Lightning, we’re happy to share our insights on a streamlined process. Contact our team to kick off the conversation.