Matching is the process Backstory uses to automatically link your captured activity data, such as emails and meetings, to the correct CRM records. After your activity is captured and filtered, Backstory analyzes signals from both the activity and your CRM to find the best possible match. Each potential match receives a confidence score, and the record with the highest score is selected.
What This Article Covers
How Backstory uses matching signals to evaluate potential CRM matches
How confidence scores are calculated and used to select a match
The CRM sync logic Backstory follows when matching activities
The Sync Without "Who" feature
How Backstory matches activities that involve partners
How Backstory automatically adds Opportunity Stage to matched activities
Matching Signals
After capturing and filtering your activity data, Backstory analyzes multiple signals from both your activity and CRM to determine where each activity belongs.
The most commonly used signals for calculating the score are:
Account name
Account domain
Account contacts
Account or opportunity owner
Opportunity contact roles
Confidence Scoring
Backstory combines all relevant signals into a cumulative confidence score for each possible CRM record. The record with the highest confidence score is returned as the match.
CRM Sync Logic
After scoring, Backstory syncs email and meeting activity to the most relevant CRM objects (Accounts, Opportunities, and Leads) by following this logic in order:
Does a Contact for this external participant exist in the CRM?
If yes, Backstory finds the related Account or open Opportunity and matches the activity to the Contact and Account or open Opportunity.
Does a Lead for this external participant (exact email match) exist in the CRM?
If no Contact exists but a Lead does, Backstory matches the activity to the Lead.
Does an Account for this external participant's domain exist in the CRM?
If neither a Contact nor a Lead exists, Backstory finds an Account with an exact domain match, creates a Contact, and matches the activity to the newly created Contact and Account or Opportunity. This requires Contact Creation to be enabled.
Sync Without “Who”
By default, Backstory only syncs activities that are tied to a person (a contact or lead), not just an account or opportunity. That’s because an activity is most useful when you know who it involves. Without a person attached, the context is incomplete and much less actionable.
However, some organizations benefit from syncing activities that are matched only to an account. In that case, you can request to enable the Sync Without “Who” feature. It is especially beneficial if Automatic Contact Creation is disabled, and Backstory is not automatically creating contacts from your emails and meetings.
To enable the Sync Without “Who” feature, contact support@backstory.ai.
Partner Activity Matching
In enterprise sales, partners like resellers and distributors often play a key role. Backstory identifies which accounts and contacts are partners based on your existing Salesforce data and syncs partner activity to the right records.
Backstory identifies partner accounts based on Salesforce fields you already use. By default, an account is identified as a Partner if either of these are true:
The Account.Type field contains “Partner”
The Account.RecordType field contains “Partner”
Note: These field values are configurable. Your organization may use terms like “Reseller,” “Channel,” or “Distributor.” Contact support@backstory.ai to adjust these settings.
Backstory uses the following logic to match the partner to the correct record:
Activity involves the seller and partner (no customer present):
If a salesperson and a partner are talking about a specific customer, Backstory logs that activity under that customer.
If they don’t mention any customer, it logs the activity under the partner instead.
Activity involves the seller, partner, and customer: Backstory logs the activity under the customer, marks that a partner was involved, and tags the partner’s name.
Note: Only one partner can be tagged per activity. If multiple partner accounts are involved, Backstory selects one to tag.
Opportunity Stage
Backstory automatically includes the current Opportunity Stage on activities that are matched to an Opportunity and synced to your CRM. This ensures every email, meeting, or call is tied not just to the record, but also to where the deal was at that point in time.
With this added context, sales teams can better understand whether the right activities are happening at each stage of the opportunity lifecycle. For example, if an opportunity is in a critical stage like negotiation but shows minimal activity, it can quickly signal potential risk and help teams take action.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I change which signals Backstory uses or how they are weighted?
No. The list of signals and their weightings are not configurable. Score-based matching automatically considers all available signals for every activity.
Can I change how CRM records are scored or ranked?
You cannot directly change the scoring or ranking. However, administrators can define custom business rules to influence which record is ultimately selected from the list of high-scoring candidates. See Matching Settings for more information.
What happens if no confident match is found for an activity?
If the algorithm cannot find a satisfactory match using the primary owner, it will attempt to match using every other potential owner on the activity. If no match is found after exhausting all options, the activity remains unmatched.
Need Help?
Contact your Customer Success Manager or email support@backstory.ai.