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Getting Started: Connecting Your Email and Calendar to AI CRM Full Guide

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Getting-Started-Connecting-Your-Email-and-Calendar-to-AI-CRM

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Getting Started: Connecting Your Email and Calendar to AI CRM Full Guide

A complete guide to connecting, managing, troubleshooting, and disconnecting your email in AI CRM.

Important: This feature is only available on desktop. It is not accessible through the Luxury Presence Mobile App.

Overview

Connecting your email and calendar to AI CRM syncs your contacts and keeps your database up to date as new contacts appear in your inbox. Once connected, AI CRM analyzes your contacts, emails, and interaction history to surface follow-up opportunities through Smart Actions — past clients who may be ready to move again, referrals that need attention, or leads that went quiet. Connecting your email is the single most impactful setup step: without it, Smart Actions won't have the data they need to make accurate recommendations.

You choose whether to import contacts automatically or sync emails only, and if you import contacts, you control which contact types get added. Google (Gmail and Google Workspace) and Microsoft (Outlook and Microsoft 365) accounts are supported.

What data AI CRM accesses when you connect

When you connect your email to AI CRM, you're granting a specific set of permissions so AI CRM can import contacts and surface relationship intelligence. AI CRM connects through Nylas, an email integration provider, which handles the secure connection to Google or Microsoft on your behalf.

Permissions requested:

Read your email — AI CRM reads the messages in your mailbox to show your email conversations with each client on their contact timeline, analyze content to surface follow-up opportunities and suggested actions, and create contacts from the people you correspond with.
Send email — AI CRM can send email from your address, but only when you send it yourself from the Presence® Platform. Replies land in your normal mailbox.
Read your calendar — AI CRM reads your calendar events to surface meetings and appointments next to the related contact.
Read your contacts — AI CRM reads your saved contacts and the people you email with (on Google, this includes your organization's directory) to import the contacts you already have.

Privacy protections:

Every permission above is read-only, except for sending — and that only happens when you actively send an email from the dashboard.
AI CRM requests only the minimum permissions required to run the integration.
You can disconnect at any time — from the Presence® Platform or from your Google or Microsoft account directly — which revokes access immediately.

How you grant these permissions differs by provider:

Google (Gmail): You'll see a checklist and can approve or decline each permission individually. Declining one only turns off that specific feature — the rest of the integration still works.
Microsoft (Outlook): Microsoft presents all permissions as a single set. You approve them all to connect, or the connection won't complete — there's no per-permission choice. Some organizations also require an IT administrator to approve the app once before anyone can connect.

Exact permission scopes (for IT and security reviewers):

Read your email — Google gmail.readonly; Microsoft Mail.Read
Send email — Google gmail.send; Microsoft Mail.Send
Read your calendar — Google calendar.readonly; Microsoft Calendars.Read
Read your contacts — Google contacts.other.readonly, directory.readonly; Microsoft Contacts.Read, People.Read
Connection and sign-in (keeps the connection alive and identifies the account) — Google: handled via OAuth refresh token; Microsoft offline_access, openid, profile, User.Read

Microsoft Application (client) ID: 135865dc-cbbc-4b2c-b6fa-ac82a77c3dc2 — for IT admins approving or allow-listing the app in Microsoft Entra.

How to connect your email and calendar

Admin and Member users can connect an email account to AI CRM. Guest users have view-only access and cannot connect an email.

There are two ways to start the connection. Both paths lead to the same authorization flow.

Option 1 — From the Contacts page

Navigate to the Presence® Platform.
Click Contacts from the left-hand menu.
Click Connect your email in the top-right corner.

Option 2 — From Connected Accounts

Navigate to the Presence® Platform.
Click your name or initials in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Select Settings from the menu.
Click Connected Accounts.
Locate the Email & Calendar section and click Add account.

Complete the setup

Regardless of which option you use, complete the connection by following these steps:

On the Configure your email sync screen, select your sync preference:
- Sync emails and import contacts — Contacts from your inbox are added to AI CRM automatically. This is the suggested option.
- Sync emails only — Emails sync to contact profiles, but no new contacts are created from your inbox.
Click Next.
If you selected Sync emails and import contacts, the Which contacts should we import? screen appears. Check the contact types you want AI CRM to import automatically: Lead, Active Client, Past Client, Sphere, Agent, Vendor, and Other.
Click Next.
On the Select your email account screen, choose your email provider — Google or Microsoft.
Follow the prompts to authorize access to your email account.

Once authorized, AI CRM begins syncing your email and importing contacts based on your settings.

What happens after you connect

After connecting your email, AI CRM syncs your contacts on an ongoing basis according to your preferences.

If you chose Sync emails and import contacts, AI CRM will:

Import contacts from your inbox automatically as new contacts appear
Assign a contact type to each contact based on your email history
Set a Source showing where each contact came from
Calculate a Lead Score (if enabled) based on engagement signals
Read message content to pull actionable context for relationship intelligence

If you chose Sync emails only, no new contacts are created from your inbox. Emails still sync to the profiles of contacts already in AI CRM.

How long the import takes depends on the size of your contact list. Contacts appear in your list as they're processed — you don't need to wait for the full import to complete before using AI CRM.

Contact list size	Estimated import time
Under 1,000 contacts	15–30 minutes
Several thousand contacts	Up to a few hours

If your brokerage requires administrator approval

Many brokerages manage company email through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 and require an administrator to review and approve third-party applications, like AI CRM, before they can connect to an employee's email account. If you tried to connect your email and received a message saying administrator approval is required, this is a normal security setting on your brokerage's side — not an issue with your account.

Once your brokerage approves the connection, your email can sync with AI CRM so it has real contact and conversation history to work from, which allows Smart Actions to start surfacing the right follow-up opportunities based on your actual client relationships.

How to request brokerage approval:

Identify who to contact. Start with the person or team at your brokerage responsible for managing email and technology systems — typically IT support or the help desk, an office administrator, an operations manager, the compliance team, or your managing broker. If you're not sure who to reach, ask whoever helped set up your company email account.
Send an approval request. Use this template, customized with your details:

Subject: Request to approve Luxury Presence email connection

Hi {Name},

I'm currently setting up my CRM and would like to connect my work email account ({your email address}).

When I attempted to connect my email, I received a message indicating administrator approval is required before the connection can be completed.

Could you please review and approve the Luxury Presence email connection?

A few helpful details:
- The connection is used to sync contacts and conversation history within my CRM.
- I continue to review and approve all emails before they are sent.
- I sign in through our existing {Google Workspace OR Microsoft 365} account, and Luxury Presence does not receive my password.
- The connection is powered through a service called Nylas, which may appear under that name in your admin console.

If additional technical or security information is needed, please let me know, and the Luxury Presence team would be happy to assist.

Thank you for your help.

{Your name}

Wait for approval, then reconnect your email. Once your brokerage approves the connection, return to your email connection settings and attempt the connection again — in most cases, it completes successfully right away.

Brokerage approval is usually granted once; after that, most email connections complete successfully without further review.

If your email won't connect

AI CRM supports email sync for the following account types:

Gmail — personal @gmail.com accounts
Google Workspace — business email accounts powered by Google (e.g., you@yourcompany.com), commonly used by real estate brokerages on a custom domain
Microsoft Outlook — personal @outlook.com or @hotmail.com accounts
Microsoft 365 — business email accounts powered by Microsoft (e.g., you@yourcompany.com)

If you're unsure whether your business email is powered by Google or Microsoft, contact your IT department or brokerage admin.

Issue: "Add account" button does nothing, or the page appears blocked

This usually means a browser pop-up blocker is preventing the Google or Microsoft authentication window from opening.

Navigate to the Presence® Platform.
Click your name or initials in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Select Settings from the menu.
Click Connected Accounts.
Locate the Email & Calendar section and click Add account.
If nothing happens, look for a pop-up blocked notification in your browser's address bar and click Allow.
If the issue persists, try again in an incognito or private browser window.

Issue: Google Workspace (corporate Gmail) account won't authenticate

If your email address ends in a custom domain (e.g., @compass.com, @yourteam.com) but is powered by Google Workspace, you can still connect it — but you must sign in using your Google account credentials, not just your email address.

Navigate to the Presence® Platform.
Click your name or initials in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Select Settings from the menu.
Click Connected Accounts.
Locate the Email & Calendar section and click Add account.
When the Google sign-in window appears, enter your business email address and authenticate through Google as normal.
Grant the requested permissions and click Allow.

If your Google Workspace account has restrictions set by your brokerage's IT administrator — such as third-party app access being disabled — the connection may be blocked at the Google level, not by Luxury Presence. Contact your brokerage's IT team to allow the integration.

Issue: Import completes but no contacts appear

Verify your contacts exist by opening your email provider's contacts list and confirming entries are saved there.
Allow time for the import — smaller lists take 15–30 minutes; larger lists can take a few hours. Contacts appear as they're processed.
Check the Contacts section in the Presence® Platform to see if new entries have appeared.

What if my email provider isn't Google or Microsoft? Only Google (Gmail and Google Workspace) and Microsoft (Outlook and Microsoft 365) accounts are supported. Other providers, including Yahoo and iCloud, are not supported at this time. You can still use AI CRM without connecting an email — add contacts manually or import them in bulk via CSV instead.

If your dashboard is stuck scanning or syncing

If your AI CRM dashboard has been cycling through messages like "finding contacts," "scanning email threads," or "syncing account" without completing, the most likely cause is a connected email account that isn't supported by AI CRM (such as Yahoo Mail, iCloud, or AOL). Disconnecting the unsupported account stops the loop immediately, and no contacts will have been imported during that time.

Step 1 — Disconnect the unsupported email account

Navigate to the Presence® Platform.
Click your name or initials in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Select Settings from the menu.
Click Connected Accounts.
Locate the Email & Calendar section and find the connected account.
Click Disconnect and confirm when prompted.

Step 2 — Connect a supported account (optional)

If you have a Google or Microsoft email account, follow the connection steps earlier in this guide to import your contacts from a supported provider instead.

How to change your sync settings after connecting

Your sync preferences aren't locked in once you connect. You can switch between sync modes or change which contact types get imported at any time.

Navigate to the Presence® Platform.
Click your name or initials in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Select Settings from the menu.
Click Connected Accounts.
Locate your connected email account and click the three-dots icon.
Select Edit settings.
Choose your sync preference:
- Sync emails and import contacts — Contacts from your inbox are added to AI CRM automatically.
- Sync emails only — Emails sync to contact profiles, but no new contacts are created from your inbox.
If you selected Sync emails and import contacts, check or uncheck the contact types you want imported: Lead, Active Client, Past Client, Sphere, Agent, Vendor, and Other.
Click Save to apply your changes.

Changes apply to new contacts going forward. Contacts already in AI CRM are not affected — no existing contacts will be deleted, whether you're adding or removing a contact type from your sync preferences.

How to disconnect your email and calendar

Disconnecting removes the active sync connection and stops any further contacts from being imported. It does not delete contacts already imported into AI CRM — only the active connection is removed.

When you connect a Google or Outlook account, AI CRM syncs contacts continuously via webhook — importing anyone found in your sent folder over the last 24 months, with new contacts added on an ongoing basis. If you only want to stop new contacts from being created without losing email sync entirely, use "Sync emails only" from the settings steps above instead of disconnecting entirely.

To disconnect Google:

Navigate to the Presence® Platform.
Click your name or initials in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Select Settings from the menu.
Click Connected Accounts in the left-hand menu.
Select Email & Calendar.
Locate your connected Google account and click Disconnect.
Confirm the disconnection when prompted.

To disconnect Outlook:

Navigate to the Presence® Platform.
Click your name or initials in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Select Settings from the menu.
Click Connected Accounts in the left-hand menu.
Select Email & Calendar.
Locate your connected Outlook account and click Disconnect.
Confirm the disconnection when prompted.

Once disconnected, AI CRM stops importing contacts from that account. If you want to remove contacts that came in through email sync specifically, go to the Contacts page, filter by Capture Source: Email Import, and bulk archive them.

You can reconnect a Google or Outlook account at any time by following the connection steps earlier in this guide — reconnecting resumes syncing contacts from that account.

FAQs

Do I have to connect my email to use AI CRM?

Connecting your email is optional — you can start using AI CRM without it. However, connecting your email is the fastest way to populate your contact list and gives AI CRM the relationship data it needs for accurate Smart Actions recommendations. If you skip it during setup, you can return to Contacts and click Connect Account at any time.

What's the difference between "Sync emails and import contacts" and "Sync emails only"?

Sync emails and import contacts automatically adds new contacts from your inbox to AI CRM on an ongoing basis and syncs email activity to their profiles. Sync emails only syncs email activity to contacts already in AI CRM but does not create new contacts from your inbox.

Can AI CRM read my emails?

When you connect your email, AI CRM reads message content to extract relationship intelligence, such as identifying contacts and interaction patterns. AI CRM does not store raw email text, drops sensitive information during processing, and never uses your data to train AI models.

Will disconnecting my email delete my contacts?

No. Disconnecting your email from AI CRM does not delete any contacts already imported. Only the active sync connection is removed — your existing data, notes, activity, and history are unaffected.

What email providers does AI CRM support?

AI CRM supports Google (Gmail and Google Workspace) and Microsoft (Outlook and Microsoft 365) accounts. Other providers, including Yahoo and iCloud, are not currently supported.

Can I connect my email to AI CRM from the Luxury Presence Mobile App?

No. You can access your contacts on the Luxury Presence Mobile App, but connecting, disconnecting, or managing your email and calendar sync must be done from the desktop version of the Presence® Platform.

How do I contact Luxury Presence support about connecting my email?

If you run into an issue connecting, syncing, or disconnecting your email that isn't covered here, you can contact our support team:

Live chat via the Presence® Platform (fastest)
Email: support@luxurypresence.com (general) / billing@luxurypresence.com (billing)
Phone: 310-955-1077, option 2