Activity Settings
Activity Settings is the Salesforce Setup page that controls organization-wide behavior for Tasks and Events: whether Shared Activities is enabled (allowing a Task or Event to relate to multiple Contacts), whether users can relate Events to multiple people, whether activity reminders default on or off, and several smaller toggles affecting how the platform manages the Task and Event objects.
Definition
Activity Settings is the Salesforce Setup page that controls organization-wide behavior for Tasks and Events: whether Shared Activities is enabled (allowing a Task or Event to relate to multiple Contacts), whether users can relate Events to multiple people, whether activity reminders default on or off, and several smaller toggles affecting how the platform manages the Task and Event objects. Changes apply to every Task and Event across every user, every record, and every integration that creates activities.
The page is one of the lower-traffic Setup destinations and holds settings that meaningfully shape how the org's data captures relationships and follow-up. Shared Activities is the most consequential toggle; enabling it changes the data model permanently because once activities are related to multiple contacts, the data cannot be cleanly reverted. Most other settings are easier to change but still affect downstream automation, reporting, and the Activity Timeline experience users live with daily.
Why Activity Settings shapes reporting more than admins expect
Where Activity Settings lives in setup
Setup, Activity Settings. The page lists Task and Event settings in a single panel. The settings cluster into four groups: relationship model (Shared Activities, multi-Contact Events), reminders (default reminder behavior, snooze settings), Email-to-Salesforce (the legacy email logging feature), and platform behavior (Activity Timeline grouping, completed-activity visibility). The settings here interact with Activity Capture configurations elsewhere in Setup; activity data ultimately flows through both pages.
Shared Activities: the data model decision
Shared Activities (also called Contacts to Multiple Activities) lets a single Task or Event relate to multiple Contacts through a junction object. Without it, an Event for a sales meeting with three Contacts has to be logged three times (once per Contact) or once with only one Contact as the Related To. With it, the Event logs once and relates to all three. The setting is effectively one-way; enabling cannot be cleanly reversed because the historical activity data structure changes. Most enterprise B2B orgs enable Shared Activities; small B2C orgs often do not because they rarely deal with multi-Contact meetings.
Reminders, defaults, and the agent experience
Activity Settings controls whether new Tasks and Events get reminders by default and what the default reminder time is (15 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day). The choice affects how reps experience their day; default-on reminders surface in Salesforce's reminder window and can be overwhelming if reps create many activities. Default-off reminders require reps to enable per-activity, which most reps will not do. The middle path (default on for Events, default off for Tasks) is the common compromise. Test changes in a sandbox; what feels right to an admin may not match what reps prefer.
Email-to-Salesforce and the legacy logging path
Email-to-Salesforce is the older email logging feature where reps BCC a specific Salesforce address to log emails to their records. Activity Settings controls whether the feature is enabled, what address scheme is used, and how unrelated emails are handled. The feature predates Einstein Activity Capture by several years and is mostly superseded by EAC for orgs that have moved to that. Activity Settings still surfaces the Email-to-Salesforce toggles for orgs that have not migrated; turning them off without migrating to EAC drops the org back to manual email logging, which is worse.
Activity Timeline and the user-facing display
The Activity Timeline is the Lightning component that shows past and future activities on a record's right rail. Activity Settings controls how the timeline groups activities (by month, by quarter, by activity type), what fields display on each activity card, and whether completed activities are shown by default or hidden. The settings affect how reps perceive the record at a glance; a cluttered timeline makes it harder to find the recent meaningful activity. Most teams settle on grouping by quarter, showing completed by default, and hiding system-generated activities (workflow-created tasks, integration logs).
Permissions and the per-user override
Some Activity Settings have per-user overrides via Permission Sets. The default reminder behavior can be overridden per user. The Activity Timeline display preferences are stored per user once they change them. The org-wide setting is the default; user overrides take precedence. This matters for change-management; an admin who changes the org-wide setting expecting all users to see the change finds that users who had previously customized their preferences keep the customization. Communicate org-wide changes explicitly to users so they know to revisit their personal settings if needed.
Audit cadence and what to watch for
Audit Activity Settings quarterly alongside Account Settings. Specifically: confirm Shared Activities setting still matches the org's relationship model, confirm reminder defaults match rep preferences (not admin guesses), confirm Email-to-Salesforce status matches the actual email logging path the team uses, confirm Activity Timeline display defaults match how reps work today. The audit takes 15 minutes and catches settings that drift from current practice as the team and the product evolve.
How to audit and tune Activity Settings
The pattern: audit in sandbox first, make changes one at a time, communicate to users, monitor for downstream complaints. Activity Settings is low-traffic but the settings cascade across every user's daily workflow.
- Open Activity Settings in sandbox first
Setup, Activity Settings. Document the current state of every toggle. Sandbox first is critical because some changes (Shared Activities) are effectively one-way.
- Walk each setting against current business needs
Shared Activities, reminder defaults, Email-to-Salesforce, Activity Timeline grouping. For each, ask: does this match what reps actually do today?
- Flag toggles that need stakeholder input
Shared Activities (RevOps), reminder defaults (Sales Ops), Email-to-Salesforce vs Activity Capture (depends on org's email integration strategy). These deserve a conversation before changing.
- Make changes one at a time
One toggle, validate downstream behavior, then the next. Two simultaneous changes make it hard to attribute new behavior to a specific change.
- Communicate org-wide changes to users
Settings with per-user overrides do not propagate to users who customized previously. Tell the team what changed and what they may want to update in their own settings.
- Push from sandbox to production through the pipeline
Change sets, source-tracked sandboxes, or DevOps Center. Treat Activity Settings changes the same as any other Setup change.
- Schedule the next quarterly audit
Add the audit to your calendar alongside Account Settings. The quarterly cadence catches drift.
Enables multi-Contact relationships on Tasks and Events. Effectively one-way once enabled.
Whether new Tasks and Events get reminders by default and what the default time is.
The legacy BCC-based email logging feature. Mostly superseded by Einstein Activity Capture for orgs that migrated.
Grouping, field display, completed-activity visibility on the right-rail Activity Timeline component.
Which settings users can override personally and which are locked to the org-wide default.
- Shared Activities is effectively one-way. Enabling cannot be cleanly reversed because historical activity data structure changes.
- Default reminder behavior affects every new activity. Turning reminders on by default for a team that creates dozens of tasks per day produces overwhelming reminder windows.
- Email-to-Salesforce and Einstein Activity Capture serve overlapping needs. Running both creates duplicate activity records; pick one path per email integration.
- Per-user overrides shadow org-wide changes. Users who customized previously keep their customization; admins expecting org-wide propagation are surprised.
- Activity Timeline changes do not apply retroactively to existing customizations on the record page. Some changes require the user to refresh or the admin to re-publish the Lightning page.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Activity Settings referenceSalesforce
- Activities overviewSalesforce
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Activity Settings.
- Activity SettingsSalesforce Help
- Shared ActivitiesSalesforce Help
- Email-to-SalesforceSalesforce Help
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. Can a Salesforce admin configure Activity Settings without writing code?
Q2. What is the primary benefit of Activity Settings for Salesforce administrators?
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