Agentforce Sales Development Representative (SDR) agent is an autonomous agent that helps you scale your top of funnel efforts, streamline prospect qualification, and generate pipeline around the clock. By handling initial outreach, Agentforce SDR agent gives sales reps more time to nurture relationships.

Agentforce SDR agent acts as a user in your organization, with its own user record created by the Salesforce admin and specific permissions that let it function as an autonomous agent.

Your SDR agent can work around the clock, initiating contact with prospects on a schedule you set. The agent generates a customized initial email based on the prospect record details. If a prospect doesn’t reply, the agent sends a follow-up. When a prospect replies, the agent detects whether they are interested, sends a response containing a meeting link from the record owner’s calendar, and copies the sales rep.

In this blog post, we will take a deep dive into Agentforce SDR Agent—exploring what it is, its features, capabilities, and a detailed guide on how to set it up.

Features and Capabilities of Agentforce SDR Agent

The agent can significantly increase your pipeline by

• Sending customized initial outreach emails to prospects using data from the lead, contact, or person account record
• Following up with a nudge email when needed
• Answering specific questions from prospects using information from your company
• Handing off interested prospects to sales reps to book a meeting
• Handling off-topic replies from prospects
• Handling prospect email opt-out requests
• Answering prospect questions with responses that are grounded in your company data

What Can It Do?

Task	Description
Initial Outreach	Automatically drafts and sends the first outreach email.
Follow-ups	Sends follow-up “nudge” emails if no reply is received.
Meeting Booking	Includes meeting links and auto-schedules based on rep’s calendar.
Respond to Replies	Detects if a reply is interested, off-topic, or a question, and responds accordingly.
Self-Managed	Operates on a schedule, can be assigned via rules or manual actions.
Reports & Logs	Tracks activities through Email Messages and Activity Timeline.

Steps to Set Up Agentforce SDR Agent

Step 1: Enable Agentforce SDR

After that all supporting features will turn on as shown in image

Step 2: Create an SDR agent User

An Agentforce SDR agent operates like a regular user in your organization, but with special permissions. To set up your agent, create a user record, assign it permissions, and set up Einstein Activity Capture and email for it.

after that click Go to Permission Sets

This opens the Permission Sets page of the Agentforce SDR agent. Click Add Assignments.

Select the checkbox for Agent, SDR, click Assign, and click Done. You have now added the Agentforce SDR agent permission set to your Agent user.

Create an SDR Agent, click Go to EAC Settings.

To let an Agentforce SDR user access your email and calendar applications, add it to an EAC configuration.

1. In Agentforce SDR Setup, navigate to Step 2: Create an SDR User.
2. Click EAC Settings.
3. On the Einstein Activity Capture Setup page, click Add Contact and event Sync.
4. Select your Email and Calendar service.
5. Select the user connection preference.
6. Enter a name for your EAC configuration, and click Next.
7. Verify all the settings and edit if needed.
8. On the Add Users and Profiles page, select the Agentforce SDR agent you’ve created from the Available list and move it to the Selected list, using the right arrow.
9. Click Finish.

Step 3: Grant access to your SDR agent

1. In Agentforce SDR Setup, navigate to Step 3: Grant Sales Users Access to Agentforce SDR.
2. To give your sales managers permission to configure your Agentforce SDR agents, click SDR Manager Permissions.The Configure Agentforce SDR Agent Permissions setup page opens.
3. Click Add Assignments.
4. Select the user that you want to assign the permission sets to.
5. Click Assign.
6. To give your sales reps permission to assign leads to the Agentforce SDR agent, click SDR User Permissions.
7. Select the user that you want to assign the permission sets to.
8. Click Permission Set Assignments.
9. Click Edit Assignments.
10. In the Available Permission Sets, select the permission sets that you want to assign to the user.
    • The Use Agentforce SDR Agent permission set allows human users to access and interact with Agentforce SDR.
    • To send leads to the SDR agent, sales reps need additional permissions.
      • Sales Engagement User
      • Automated Actions User
    • The Configure Agentforce SDR Agent permission set lets managers use and monitor Agentforce SDR in their organization.
    • To view and configure the SDR agent in Agent Builder, sales managers need additional permissions.
      • Sales Engagement Cadence Creator
      • Automated Actions User
      • Data Cloud Admin
11. Click the add button to move the selected permission sets to the Enabled Permission Sets list.
12. Save your changes.

Step 4: Configure and activate your SDR agent

1. On the Agentforce SDR Setup page, click Step 4: Configure and Activate Your SDR, then click Agent Builder.Agent Builder is only available from SDR Setup when the previous Agentforce SDR Setup steps are complete.The first time you configure your agent in Agent Builder, the experience includes training your agent.
2. Click Settings.
3. The Name and Description fields are pre-filled. For the Agent User, select the Agentforce SDR user record you created.
4. Enable Enrich Event Logs with Conversation Data.
5. Save your changes.
6. To review the topics the agent uses, click the Topics tab.
7. To review the actions the agent uses, click the Actions tab.
8. On the Engagement Rules tab, choose when to assign leads to the SDR agent, how often to reach out, and an Outreach Schedule.
   1. Select the lead field conditions for assigning leads to your Agentforce SDR agent. For example, you can assign leads to the agent when a lead is created or updated with a Rating of Cold.To have leads they own assigned to the SDR agent automatically with these rules, sales users need the Automated Action User and Use Agentforce SDR Agent permissions. Users can also assign leads manually or by creating an automated action for themselves or their team.
   2. To connect an email account to your Agentforce SDR agent, click Connect an Account. Accept the terms and then enter the email address. This is the external email account that the agent uses to send emails. Adding the email account here lets Einstein Activity Capture sync the SDR agent’s emails between Salesforce and your email application.
   3. Choose how many email attempts, including the initial email and subsequent nudges, you want the agent to perform. Then choose the amount of time between attempts.
   4. Choose a maximum number of replies the agent can send in response to a lead’s questions. The agent answers lead questions using the information you upload in the Data Library tab.
   5. Set an Outreach Schedule of the hours and days the agent performs its outreach.
9. To choose Language and Tone settings, click the Language Settings tab. The agent uses the selected language to generate its emails. However, the agent can understand prospect reply emails in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Portuguese.
10. Click Create.
11. In the Agent Builder page, click Activate.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have explored all the essential aspects of Agentforce SDR Agent, including its definition, key features, capabilities, and a detailed guide on how to set it up effectively.

You can deepen your understanding of Data Cloud by exploring our comprehensive course on Salesforce Data Cloud and Agentforce – Building Agents and also check out our latest blogs on our websites for additional knowledge about salesforce.