---
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title: Lightning Sync Design and Data Flow
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/sales/264-0-0/lightning_sync_admin_security_design_data.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.lightning_sync_admin_security_design_data.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
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description: Lightning Sync is designed to simplify the data flow between Salesforce and your email service.
products:
  - Sales Cloud
  - Cross Cloud
  - Service Cloud Voice
release: "264"
---
# Lightning Sync Design and Data Flow

Lightning Sync is designed to simplify the data flow between Salesforce and your email service.

Lightning Sync connects the core Salesforce database with your email server directly, with no email client required to maintain synchronization. This design simplifies the connection process and makes Lightning Sync a superior solution to Salesforce for Outlook, which requires a connection to individual Outlook user accounts. Calls to sync are made from an automated process on the Salesforce core stack to your email service, regardless of which data store has been updated. Users don’t directly invoke communication between the systems. Likewise, the email service doesn’t initiate communication.

![Corresponding diagram demonstrating how Lightning Sync pushes and pulls your data between the Salesforce UI, the Salesforce database, and your email service](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-sales-sales_productivity-264-0-0-production-enus/b2f6c36a-fa61-4a3c-9752-032ce1818a69/sales_productivity/images/s2x/lightning_sync_data_flow.png)

With Lightning Sync, Data is stored in two locations only: users’ individual email services and the Salesforce core database.