v20
Transcription Options
You can choose from one of the 3 providers listed below for voicemail transcription, depending on your license level
- Native - Systems that are on 8 simultaneous channels or higher
- OpenAI - Available to all, this requires an OpenAI business account
- Google - Available to all, this requires a Google Storage account and Cloud Project
Setup Transcription
- Go to Dashboard > Settings
- Open the Voicemail subsection
- Choose from your preferred provider to continue
OpenAI
You will first need to register for an OpenAI Platform account as a business, and attach a payment method.
- Select OpenAI Whisper for the Transcription Engine
- Add in your Secret Key generated from the OpenAI Platform Console
- Set the audio language to detect and use
- Click Save
Native
8 Call License Required
This cannot be used by systems with less than 8 simultaneous calls or users on their license.
- Select Native
- Select the language, or leave as Auto Detect if you expect multiple
- Click Save
As of 5/15/2025 we do not have the frontend options for this available, as it has changed dramatically since v18, so if you need assistance in configuring Google, please reach out to our support team.
Setup Departments
Transcription is controlled at the department level, allowing some users or queues to be transcribed and others not.
- Go to Extensions > Groups/Departments in the phone system
- Edit the department that you want to have transcription turned on for
- Under Transcription Mode, set it to Voicemails
- Click Save
All voicemails received by members of that department should now be transcribed, and that will be included in Email Notifications for Voicemail and Voicemail to Ticket.
v18
How to Use Voicemail Transcription
While bvoip doesn't offer our own in-house transcriptions, our own support team assists in helping setup google API transcriptions.
Pre-Requisites for Voicemail Transcription
- GCloud Account with Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API enabled.
- The Recording file compression option needs to be disabled.
- The first 1 minute of voicemail and/or recording audio is transcribed.
Disabling Recording File Compression
To disable this option in the bvoip phone system:
- Click on the Storage drop-down.
- Go to on the Recordings subsection.
- Select the Quota tab.
- Scroll down to the Compression section.
- De-select the box.
- Click the Save button.
Setting Up Google Cloud API
- Login to your GCloud Console.
- Click on the three horizontal lines icon on the top left of the screen to open the main menu.
- Navigate to the APIs & Services section.
- Select the Dashboard subsection.
- Click on the Enable APIs & Services option.
- Search and Select the Cloud Speech-to-Text API option.
- Click on the Enable option.
- Go to the APIs & Services section.
- Select the Dashboard subsection.
- Click on the Credentials option.
- Go to the Credentials tab.
- Select the Create Credentials drop-down.
- Choose the API Key option.
- Copy the API key.
- Click on the Restrict Key option.
- Name the API key.
- Scroll down to the Application Restrictions section.
- Select the IP addresses option. You can allow only your Phone System to access the API key by adding its IP address. Both IPV4 and IPv6 of the IP addresses need to be allowed.
- Scroll down to the API restrictions section.
- Select the Restrict Key option.
- Choose the Cloud Speech-to-Text API drop-down option to restrict access only to this API.
- Click the Save button.
Integrating Transcription
To configure the bvoip phone system to use transcription for voicemails and/or recordings:
- Log into the bvoip phone system.
- Click on the Settings drop-down menu.
- Go to the Voicemail subsection.
- Select the Options tab.
- Scroll down to the Transcription section.
- Click on the Transcription box to open and configure the section.
- In the Google Speech API Key field, paste the copied Cloud Speech-to-Text API key.
- In the Speech Language drop-down, set the desired transcription language.
- In the Select What to Transcribe drop-down, you will have three options:
- Voicemails Only - restrict to voicemails.
- Recordings Only - apply only to the first minute of audio recordings.
- Both Voicemails and Recordings.
- Click the Save button.
After enabling Voicemail Transcription, the transcribed text is included in the email body for received voicemails.