Salesforce Spring 17' Release: G-Mail Integration

Is there anything Google can't do? For those of us that spend our work lives knee deep in Salesforce, the obvious answer to that question has been, "integrate Gmail with Salesforce easily and for free."

With the Salesforce Spring 17' release however, Gmail takes a giant leap for all email kind with the introduction of a Beta version of Lightning for Gmail. Previously, integrating Gmail with Salesforce in a functional fashion required 3rd party tools like Ebtsa or Cirrus Insights that often came with an additional per user, per month license fee.

To get started with Lightning for Gmail, simply navigate to Lightning for Gmail in Salesforce Setup and click on the Settings link. 

After enabling Lightning for Gmail, you can create custom Email Application Panes with the Lightning App Builder, assign those Email Application Panes by Profile, and create custom Publisher Layouts (we'll cover these in a future post).  

Installing the Lightning for Gmail extension is also a breeze! Simply click the link to the Chrome Web Store in the instructions at the top of the page and download the free extension. This will add the extension to your Chrome browser. Note, the Lightning for Gmail functionality is only available with a Gmail for Work account and while using the Chrome browser.