Email Summary feature automatically generates an AI-powered summary of tracked emails in Salesforce as Email Messages, helping users quickly understand conversations without reading the entire email thread.
Each summary includes:
- Executive Summary – A concise overview of the email conversation.
- Key Takeaways – Important points discussed.
-
Action Items – Follow-up tasks or next steps identified from the conversation.
Prerequisites
Before using Email Summary, ensure that:
- Email Module Sync is enabled.
- Riva Insight Pre-requisites
- You have the Riva Insight Outlook add-in installed.
- Your Salesforce account is connected to Riva Insight.
- Or, Drop folders or Category Sync is enabled.
If Salesforce is not connected, follow the Connect Salesforce guide before proceeding.
How it Works
Receive Email → Open Riva Insight → Track Email → Email Processes → AI Summary Generated & Stored in Salesforce as Email Message → View Summary
Receive Email → Categorize Email to Sync → Email Processes → AI Summary Generated & Stored in Salesforce as Email Message → View Summary
Receive Email → User Drop folders to sync an Email → Email Processes → AI Summary Generated & Stored in Salesforce as Email Message → View Summary
Once Email Summary is enabled:
- Every tracked email with content in the message body is processed through the Email Summary workflow.
- Emails with an empty message body are skipped; no summary is created.
- Instead of storing the original (raw) email in Salesforce, the summarized version is stored.
- The raw email content is not retained as part of the logged activity.
Summary Updates for New Replies
When new replies are received in a tracked email thread, Email Summary automatically generates a new summary for each reply.
- Each new summary appears as a separate activity in the Salesforce Activity Timeline.
- Existing summaries are not updated or overwritten.
- Users can review the latest summary to see the most recent thread context.
Step 1: Open the Riva Insight Side Panel
When you receive a new email in Outlook:
- Open the email.
- Open the Riva Insight side panel.
- Verify that Salesforce is connected.
If Salesforce is not connected, complete the connection process before continuing.
Step 2: Track the Email
Once Salesforce is connected:
- Select Track.
- Click Track Email.
This sends the email to Salesforce for processing.
Step 3: Wait for Processing
After tracking the email, its status will display as Pending while it is being processed.
Processing time may vary depending on system activity.
Step 4: Verify Processing is Complete
Once processing finishes:
- The email status changes to Processing Complete in Salesforce.
This indicates the email has been successfully stored and is ready for AI summarization.
Step 5: Open the Email in Salesforce
To view the generated summary:
- Navigate to the appropriate Contact, Lead, Opportunity, or other related Salesforce record.
- Locate the email in the Activity Timeline.
- Click the Email Subject to open the email details.
Step 6: View the AI Summary
Within the email details, you'll find the generated Email Summary.
The summary includes:
Executive Summary
A concise overview of the email conversation.
Key Takeaways
Important information and discussion points extracted from the email.
Action Items
Tasks or follow-up actions identified from the conversation.
Privacy & Sensitive Information (PII)
Email Summary is designed to help users quickly understand the key points of an email conversation while protecting sensitive information.
Before the generated summary is stored in Salesforce, personally identifiable information (PII) is automatically detected and redacted. This includes sensitive information such as:
- Social Security Numbers (SSNs)
- Social Insurance Numbers (SINs)
- Passport numbers
- Driver's licence numbers
- Bank account numbers
- Credit card numbers
- Other supported sensitive identifiers
As a result, sensitive values contained in the original email are not included in the stored summary.
Business information that is necessary to understand the conversation (for example, customer names or general account requests) may still appear in the summary where appropriate.
Email Summary is intended to summarize the content of the conversation while reducing the exposure of sensitive personal information.
Current Limitation
Email Summary is an all-or-nothing feature.
- It is not currently possible to choose which emails are summarized and which are stored in their original (raw) format.
- After Email Summary is enabled, all tracked emails will be summarized.
- Per-email or per-user selection between summarized and raw email storage is not supported.
Note: If your organization requires some tracked emails to be stored in their original format while others are summarized, this workflow is not currently supported.
Email Thread Length Handling
Email threads are limited to 500,000 characters for summarization. If a thread exceeds this limit, Riva retains the most recent messages and excludes older content. This prioritizes the latest decisions, updates, and action items, which are typically most relevant to the summary.
Short email threads: For a short or single-message email with minimal business content, the generated summary may be brief. It will capture the available context in the Executive Summary and Key Takeaways; the Action Items section is omitted when no concrete next steps are identified.
Troubleshooting
| Issue | Resolution |
|---|---|
| Salesforce is not connected | Connect Salesforce through the Riva Insight side panel before tracking emails. |
| Track button unavailable | Verify that the email can be tracked and that you are signed into Salesforce. |
| Email remains in Pending status | Wait a few minutes and refresh Salesforce. If the issue persists, contact your administrator. |
| No summary appears | Confirm that the email has finished processing and that Email Summary is enabled for your organization. |
| Summary appears incomplete | AI-generated summaries are based on the available email content. Ensure the full email thread has been tracked. |
Error States
| Issue | What it means | User action |
|---|---|---|
| Connection to CRM Server Failed | Riva cannot save the tracked email or summary to Salesforce. | Revalidate the Salesforce connection in the Riva Insight side panel, then track the email again. |
| Email remains in Pending status | The email is still waiting for Sync or summary processing to complete. | Wait a few minutes and refresh Salesforce. Do not track it again while it remains Pending. |
| Email Summary Error | Summary generation or synchronization did not complete for that tracked email. | Refresh Salesforce and retry tracking the email once. If it fails again, contact the administrator/support team with the email subject, tracking time, and error details. |
| No summary appears | Processing may still be underway, the feature may not be enabled, or the summary may not have synced successfully. | Confirm the email is tracked, wait a few minutes, and refresh Salesforce. If it still does not appear, contact the administrator. |
| Summary appears incomplete | The summary reflects the available content, with priority given to the most recent messages in very long threads. Attachments are not summarized. | Review the original email thread for complete context. |
Notes
- Only tracked emails are summarized.
- Summaries are generated after email processing is complete.
- AI-generated summaries are intended to assist users and should be reviewed for accuracy before making business decisions.
- Summary quality depends on the content and completeness of the tracked email conversation.
To enable this feature, please contact support@rivaengine.com