Feature overview
Contact Discovery helps users turn contact details buried in emails or meetings into actionable CRM suggestions. It looks for contact information in message content, signatures, and To/Cc fields, then compares what it finds to CRM records using email address matching. It suggests 'Create' for new contacts and 'Update' for existing contacts whose details appear to have changed.
Contact Discovery can be tailored to surface suggestions only for selected fields, helping users focus on updates they can actually act on.
Review, don’t retype: faster contact updates from email
For users, the main value is speed and less manual data entry. Instead of copying details from an email signature into Salesforce by hand, they get a pre-filled starting point they can review before saving. This reduces clicks and helps teams keep contact records more current.
Main Capabilities
How it works
Detects contact details from email or meeting content, including signatures and recipient information.
Identifies key details such as name, email address, title, company, phone number, and department.
Compares detected information against existing CRM contact records using email address matching.
Suggests when to create a new contact if no matching CRM record exists.
Suggests when to update an existing contact if supported details appear to have changed.
Supports configurable field checking so only selected fields are evaluated and suggested for create or update actions.
Allows users to review suggested fields before opening the create or update form.
Lets users skip individual fields so only the selected details are carried forward.
Keeps the user in control by requiring review before any CRM changes are saved.
How Riva users benefit
Less manual data entry: Reduces the need to copy contact details from signatures or email threads into Salesforce by hand.
Faster contact creation: Helps users create new contacts more quickly when contact information is already present in their workflow.
Easier record updates: Surfaces changed details, such as job title or phone number, so users can automate updating existing contact information.
Better CRM data quality: Helps teams keep contact records more complete and current.
Fits into the existing workflow: Users can review and act on contact suggestions directly from the email or meeting context they are already working in.
User-reviewed suggestions: Gives users a pre-filled starting point they can validate before saving, supporting accuracy and control.
Reduced repeated suggestions: Prevents users from repeatedly seeing unsupported field suggestions when those fields are not available on the CRM form.
User Impact
Accessing Contact Discovery
First, you must open an email or meeting. Then, you simply click the Contact Discovery button located at the top of Riva Insight.
Contact Discovery Suggestions
After clicking on the link to find contacts, if any contacts are discovered, you will be taken to a page like this:
Create or Update Suggested Contact
To save any of the contacts found, click on either Create or Update (depending on if it is a new contact or an existing one). Clicking on Update, for example, will take you to a form like the one shown below. You must click the Update button at the bottom of the form to save the updated information:
Skipping Fields for Contact Updates
If you want to exclude any fields from being sent to the update contact form based on the suggestions from Contact Discovery, click the Skip link next to any field.
To undo this, you may click on Unskip as seen in the image below:
Viewing Detected Contacts in the Tooltip
If Contact Discovery detects a contact but cannot recommend a Create or Update action, the contact may still appear in the tooltip with a reason. To view it, hover over the info icon.
The example below shows a common case where a name is mentioned but the email address is missing, so no Create or Update action is suggested.
Limitations
Currently not supported
Contact Discovery does not currently:
- Correcting typos or misspellings in detected contact details
- Fuzzy matching for possible duplicate contacts
- Automatically assigning an Account for new contacts based on email domain
- French support in this release
Context availability
Context scope depends on Outlook mail layout settings.
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When Outlook is set to Do not group messages, Contact Discovery can use the full visible email thread.
- When Outlook is set to Group messages by conversation, it uses only the currently selected message. Selecting a different message in grouped view refreshes the feature and requires Contact Discovery to be started again.
To learn more about changing this setting, refer to View email messages by conversation in Outlook
Where results may be weaker
Quality may be lower for:
- Very long email threads, where response times may be slower
- Compose mode, where results may be less consistent in some cases
- Emails or meeting content with incomplete, unclear, or inconsistently formatted contact details
- Content with low-quality signatures or limited identifying information
Intended use
Contact Discovery is intended to help users review contact details found in emails or meetings and act on them more easily. It works best as an in-context assistive feature for creating new contacts or updating existing ones, with users reviewing suggestions before saving.
Enablement
Interested in these features? Contact your Riva Account Representative or reach out to Riva Support Team.
Trust & Transparency
Best results come from clear context
Contact Discovery works best when email addresses are present and contact details appear clearly in the message, signature, or To/Cc fields. Results can be less complete when formatting is unusual or details are missing.
Data handling
Contact Discovery scans email and meeting content to identify contact details that may be useful for creating or updating CRM records. The feature uses that content to generate suggestions in context, but it does not store the original email or meeting content as part of the discovery process.
AI-generated output may vary
Because extraction is probabilistic, output can vary based on email structure, signature quality, thread length, and mode.
Suggestions are meant to assist, not replace judgment
Contact Discovery is designed as a smart pre-fill experience. It gives users a strong first pass, but suggested values should still be reviewed before saving.
User review remains essential
Users stay in control throughout the workflow. They can skip individual fields, and nothing is written to CRM until they confirm the action.