Activating Enhanced Email is a single toggle in Setup, but the audit work before the flip determines whether the activation is uneventful or disruptive. The steps below cover the safe activation path for an existing org.
- Check current activation status
Setup > Email > Enhanced Email. The page shows whether the feature is already on. Orgs created after 2017 typically show Active.
- Audit Apex code touching email
Search the org for Apex that creates Tasks to log email or queries Attachment on emails. Identify code that needs migration to EmailMessage and ContentDocument.
- Audit integrations
Check any third-party tool that reads or writes email data. Confirm compatibility with EmailMessage; legacy tools that depend on the Task-based model may need updates from the vendor.
- Audit reports
List reports that report on email Activities. Plan rebuilds against EmailMessage standard report types after activation, because the Activity-based reports may show partial data post-activation.
- Test in a sandbox
Enable Enhanced Email in a Full sandbox. Test every integration, custom code path, and report against the post-activation data model. Confirm everything works.
- Plan a maintenance window
Schedule the activation during a low-traffic window. Although the activation is fast, any in-flight email sends or receives may behave inconsistently during the brief switch.
- Activate in production
Setup > Email > Enhanced Email > Enable. Confirm activation. Monitor email send and receive for 24 hours post-activation; any issues need rapid diagnosis.
Master org-wide switch. One-way migration.
Setting that uses Enhanced Email threading to auto-link replies to the original Case. Recommended for Service Cloud orgs.
Modern email writing UI. Works only with Enhanced Email; legacy Activity-based email used a different composer.
Lightning page component that surfaces email under a record. Wired to EmailMessage; replaces the legacy Email Activities related list.
Some advanced features (Email Composer, threading actions) require specific permissions. Audit profile and permission set settings after activation.
- Activation is one-way without a support case. Plan the audit work thoroughly because reverting is operationally expensive.
- Apex code that queries Attachment for email files will return nothing post-activation. Update to ContentDocumentLink before activation, or those queries will silently return empty results.
- Legacy Activity-based email reports may break. Rebuild against EmailMessage standard report types as part of the activation rollout.
- Threading depends on In-Reply-To and References headers. Mail systems that strip these (some corporate gateways) produce broken threads even with Enhanced Email active.
- Pre-activation email Activities remain in their original storage. Reporting that mixes pre- and post-activation email needs to query both Activity and EmailMessage.