Skip to main content
Contact sync imports your Salesforce Contacts into Retell, writes post-call analysis results back to their fields, and logs every call and chat as a Salesforce Task on the matched Contact. This page covers the Salesforce-specific behavior; CRM integrations explains the four data flows all CRM providers share. Contact sync requires a connected Salesforce org. Integration tools work without it — see Salesforce agent functions.

​
Required permissions

Sync runs as the Run As user, set up in Step 4 of connecting. Its profile or permission sets need:
  • API Enabled.
  • Read on Contact and on every field you import.
  • Edit on Contact and on every field you write back, if you enable outbound sync.
  • Create on Task, if you enable activity logging.
A missing object or field permission doesn’t flag the connection; that field or feature silently stops syncing.

​
Set up contact sync

After the connection test passes, click Set up contact sync to open the field mapping dialog, then map the Salesforce fields you want to import and the Retell fields you want to write back. For a connection made earlier, the same dialog opens from the Connected tab: open the connection’s settings and click Set up contact sync. Retell pre-fills one mapping in each direction: Salesforce Phone to Retell phone_number. Phone number is how contacts are matched between the two systems, so it stays mapped and can’t be removed. See CRM data mappings for how to map the rest, create custom fields, and choose update modes. To log conversations to Salesforce, turn on Log activities automatically on the Sync to Salesforce tab.

​
Verify it worked

  • Open Contacts. After the first sync, Salesforce Contacts appear with correctly formatted phone numbers and your mapped fields populated.
  • The first sync is a full scan of every Contact that has the mapped phone field, so a large org takes a while. After that, Retell polls every 5 minutes (as of August 2026) and imports only Contacts modified since the last run.
Contacts with no value in the mapped phone field are skipped, as are Contacts whose number can’t be parsed into a valid E.164 number. Fix or remove malformed numbers in Salesforce before relying on two-way sync.

​
How are calls and chats represented in Salesforce?

Both become Task records associated with the matched Contact through WhoId, with Status set to Completed. A call uses the Call task subtype, a subject of Call <call_id>, and sets CallDurationInSeconds. A chat uses the generic Task subtype, since Salesforce has no standard chat or SMS subtype. The description carries the conversation ID, the from and to numbers, the disconnection reason for calls, and the summary.

​
Troubleshooting

A permission error on a single field doesn’t fail the sync or flag the connection, because Retell only treats credential rejections as connection errors. Check that the Run As user’s profile or permission set grants read (and edit, for outbound) on that specific field, and that the field is mapped on the right tab of the sync settings.
Activity logging needs three things: Log activities automatically enabled on the Sync to Salesforce tab of the sync settings, a Retell contact that was imported from this Salesforce connection, and Create permission on Task for the Run As user. Retell attaches the Task to the Contact it matched by phone number, so a call from a number that isn’t a synced Salesforce Contact is never logged.

​
FAQ

Only if you opt in. By default, outbound sync updates Contacts that already exist in Salesforce and never creates or deletes them. Turn on Create new contacts in CRM on the Sync to Salesforce tab to have Retell create a Salesforce Contact after a conversation when the matched contact isn’t linked to one yet. With the toggle off, contacts Retell creates on its own (for example from an inbound call from an unknown number) stay in Retell and aren’t pushed to Salesforce.
Only Contact. Leads, Accounts, Opportunities, Cases, and custom objects are not part of contact sync — the integration tools reach those objects live instead.
Yes. Map any Salesforce Contact field, including __c custom fields, to a Retell custom field.
They stay. Turning contact sync off stops future syncs, and deleting the connection removes the stored credentials. Contacts already imported remain in Retell either way.

​
Next steps

CRM data mappings

Map Salesforce fields to Retell contacts, choose update modes, and control what syncs back.

Build contact memory

Accumulate what your agents learn across conversations into the contact record.

Dynamic variables

Reference synced contact fields from your agent’s prompt.

Salesforce agent functions

Look up the caller, read opportunities and cases, and create leads and tasks mid-conversation.