Automatic activity capture is at the core of how Backstory works. Backstory integrates with your email, calendar, and other activity sources to sync sales activities directly to your CRM. Sensitive content is filtered out in the process, and the data is matched to the appropriate accounts and opportunities, ensuring accurate CRM records while significantly reducing the burden of manual data entry.

Backstory scans and captures the following data every 15 minutes:

Some of your emails and meetings might be personal or contain content that is not appropriate to share with the organization at large. To protect your privacy, Backstory does not capture activities that are:

In addition, for the activities that are captured, Backstory automatically detects and redacts sensitive information before it reaches your CRM. This process is fully automated, so no humans read your email content.

When sensitive content is detected:

Content filters detect and redact emails containing:

Backstory's sensitive content filtering works across the languages that multinational sales organizations use every day. When an email or meeting is ingested, Backstory performs a privacy check for sensitive and personal content regardless of what language it is written in.

How filtering works depends on the language of the activity:

The following languages are supported for pattern-based filtering:

Internal activities are those in which every recipient has an email address from a domain designated as internal to your organization. For these activities, we do not process the content of emails or meeting invites, match them to any CRM account or opportunity, or sync them to your CRM. We do, however, process the date and time of internal activities so we can report metrics on time spent internally versus externally.

Backstory never stores sensitive content that is excluded by sensitive content filters. For data that is ingested, Backstory stores the body of emails, meeting descriptions, and meeting transcripts for 15 days to allow for processing. After that, they are automatically and permanently deleted. Backstory only keeps metadata (sender, recipient, subject, date, and time) beyond that point. This metadata is retained for the duration of your organization’s contract.

Backstory calculates the duration of your sales activities to enrich activity data and provide valuable insights.

To maintain the accuracy of this data, Backstory does not count meeting duration for:

If there are overlapping meetings on your calendar, Backstory uses "less likely attended" logic to identify which meeting was most likely attended.

Backstory also uses machine learning and rule-based logic to calculate time spent on each email, considering:

Backstory automatically captures scheduled future meetings, tracks whether they occurred, and pushes all relevant details back to Salesforce.

If a meeting has a start date in the future, Backstory tags it with a “Future” meeting status. Backstory then scans meeting data every hour to detect any changes to the event, updates the meeting status accordingly, and syncs those updates back to Salesforce. Changes that trigger an update include:

Time spent is only calculated for a meeting once it has occurred, meaning the end time is in the past and the meeting was not cancelled.

If you would like time spent calculated only for meetings where participants have explicitly accepted, contact support@backstory.ai to enable this setting.

If a meeting is canceled or removed from a user’s calendar before its start time, it remains in Backstory but is marked as “Cancelled.” Backstory syncs the updated "Cancelled" status back to the Salesforce event record.

Backstory automatically distinguishes between in-person and virtual (conference call) meetings by checking whether a recognized conference link is present in the calendar event. If a link from a supported conference system is detected, the meeting is categorized as a virtual conference call. If no such link is present, the meeting is categorized as in-person.

No additional setup is required for this detection. It works automatically as long as the conference link is visible in the calendar event.

The following conference systems are supported:

Backstory captures call activity logged into Salesforce manually or through third party dialers like RingCentral, Outreach, and SalesLoft. For Backstory to recognize a Salesforce task as a call, it must be entered in Salesforce with the task type “Call.”

To display calls correctly and attribute activity to the right people and accounts, the Salesforce task must include:

Additional fields, such as call date, direction (inbound/outbound), and disposition, are optional but provide richer insights.

After capturing and filtering your activity data, Backstory automatically matches it to the correct records in your CRM and creates new contacts. See the following articles for more information:

Does Backstory capture personal phone calls or text messages?

No. Call data is only ingested when calls are logged in Salesforce.

Does Backstory capture recurring meetings on my calendar?

Yes. Backstory is able to recognize when a meeting is recurring and labels it with "[Backstory | R Meeting]."

Does Backstory process email or calendar attachments?

No. Backstory does not extract or process attachments, including files attached to calendar (.ics) events.

Will time spent still be counted for emails with sensitive content?

Yes. Activity metrics like time spent and number of touches are tracked even for sensitive emails. However, the email body is redacted.

How long does Backstory store email and calendar data?

Email and calendar body content is deleted within 15 days. Metadata is retained for the duration of your contract.

Contact your Customer Success Manager or email support@backstory.ai.