[SalesForce] Relate EmailMessage to contact

I am trying to figure out how to copy emails + attachments from one system to SF using a java application.

When creating an email from the Salesforce Lightning UI, an EmailMessage and a Task is created. This way it shows up in the Activity timeline of the contact and by clicking the link you get redirected to the email.

I managed to do the same, create an EmailMessage and a Task, but the task is not related to the mail message. When clicking the link in the activity, I go to the task object and not the MailMessage. It also doesn't display as nicely. It makes sence because I don't relate the task id to the mail message, because the EmailMessage.AcitivityId is not writable…

I set the following fields:

MailMessage: subject, textBody, toIds, ccIds, bccIds, toAddress, ccAddress, bccAddress, attachments


Task: whoId, subject, messageDate, status(completed), priority(normal), isReminderSet(false), isRecurrence(false), taskSubtype(Email), description(plain text representation of mail)

Any idea?

*ps: Other topics refer to the Case object, but the UI does not create a Case either…

Best Answer

I found one technique that might be useful. I'm creating the EmailMessage record (do not set the Status field), adding related EmailMessageRelation records (which can point to contact/lead), then updating the Status on the original EmailMessage record to Status = "3" (sent).

This causes salesforce to auto create the related Task record and associate it to the EmailMessage record and associated contacts/leads (using the EmailMessageRelation records). Still evaluating to see if there are any unknown side effects, but so far looks like a workable solution.

I tried your approach originally with no success.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Trigger on Case EmailMessage

The EmailMessage object ParentId is exclusive to Cases (at least based on current Salesforce schema information). You can always branch your code to inspect the ParentId with the Case object prefix value (500). To my knowledge, your solution of adding a trigger on EmailMessage is the only viable solution.

[SalesForce] SingleEmailMessage SetWhatId with Quote Id

So I finally got around to fixing the issue.

Just as @crop1645 said, if I simply INSERT the Task via a DML statement, I will be able to create a Task with a Quote's Id as the WhatId.

So before, as a recap, I tried something like this:

Messaging.SingleEmailMessage newEmail = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
newEmail.setToAddresses(new List<String> { emailAddress });
newEmail.setTargetObjectId(quoteBeingUsed.ContactId);
newEmail.setWhatId(quotesId);
newEmail.setTemplateId(TemplateId);
newEmail.setFileAttachments(new List<Messaging.EmailFileAttachment> { newAttachment });
Messaging.sendEmail(new List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage> { newEmail });

This resulted in throwing the following exception:

System.EmailException: SendEmail failed. First exception on row 0; first error: INVALID_ID_FIELD, Only accounts, assets, campaigns, cases, contracts, opportunities, orders, products, solutions and custom objects are allowed as whatId.: []

Now how I solved it was simple. However, I wanted to make sure I got the Task information exactly like it was done by the Email Quote button. I changed the WhatId for the SingleEmailMessage to the related OpportunityId and after the sendEmail method I followed it with:

Task newQuoteEmailTask = new Task(Subject = 'Email: ' + newEmail.getSubject(), 
     OwnerId = UserInfo.getUserId(), WhatId = quotesId, WhoId = quoteBeingUsed.ContactId,
     Status = 'Completed', ActivityDate = Date.today(), Priority = 'Normal', 
     Description = GenerateTaskComment(newEmail));
INSERT newQuoteEmailTask;

The Description's method is the following:

private static String GenerateTaskComment(Messaging.SingleEmailMessage newEmail)
{
    List<String> listOfFileNames = new List<String>();

    for(Messaging.EmailFileAttachment singleAttachment : newEmail.getFileAttachments())
        listOfFileNames.add(singleAttachment.getFileName());

    String endOfDescription = '_____________________________________________________________________'
    + '\nPowered by salesforce.com\nhttp://www.salesforce.com/';

    return 'Additional To: '+ String.join(newEmail.getToAddresses() != null ? newEmail.getToAddresses() : new List<String>(), ',')
        + '\nCC: ' + String.join(newEmail.getCcAddresses() != null ? newEmail.getCcAddresses() : new List<String>(), ',') 
        + '\nBCC: ' + String.join(newEmail.getBccAddresses() != null ? newEmail.getBccAddresses() : new List<String>(), ',') 
        + '\nAttachment'+ (listOfFileNames.size() > 1 ? 's' : '') + ': ' + String.join(listOfFileNames, ',')
        + '\n\nSubject: ' + newEmail.getSubject()
        + '\nBody:\n' + newEmail.getPlainTextBody()
        + '\n\n' + endOfDescription;
}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Trigger on Case EmailMessage

[SalesForce] SingleEmailMessage SetWhatId with Quote Id

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