Voicemail Transcription

This article will provide elaboration on what options are available for voicemail transcriptions.

Updated at May 15th, 2025

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

  1. Go to Dashboard > Settings
  2. Open the Voicemail subsection
  3. 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.

  1. Select OpenAI Whisper for the Transcription Engine
  2. Add in your Secret Key generated from the OpenAI Platform Console
  3. Set the audio language to detect and use
  4. Click Save
 
 

Native

8 Call License Required

This cannot be used by systems with less than 8 simultaneous calls or users on their license.

 
  1. Select Native
  2. Select the language, or leave as Auto Detect if you expect multiple
  3. Click Save
 
 

Google

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.

  1. Go to Extensions > Groups/Departments in the phone system
  2. Edit the department that you want to have transcription turned on for
  3. Under Transcription Mode, set it to Voicemails
  4. 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:

  1. Click on the Storage drop-down.
  2. Go to on the Recordings subsection.
  3. Select the Quota tab.
  4. Scroll down to the Compression section. 
  5. De-select the box. 
  6. Click the Save button.
 

Setting Up Google Cloud API

  1. Login to your GCloud Console.
  2. Click on the three horizontal lines icon on the top left of the screen to open the main menu.
  3. Navigate to the APIs & Services section.
  4. Select the Dashboard subsection.
  5. Click on the Enable APIs & Services option.
  6. Search and Select the Cloud Speech-to-Text API option.
  7. Click on the Enable option.
  8. Go to the APIs & Services section.
  9. Select the Dashboard subsection.
  10. Click on the Credentials option.
    Getting a Google Cloud Subscription Key
  11. Go to the Credentials tab.
  12. Select the Create Credentials drop-down. 
  13. Choose the API Key option.
    Creating your API key for Google Cloud
  14. Copy the API key.
  15. Click on the Restrict Key option.
  16. Name the API key. 
  17. Scroll down to the Application Restrictions section.
    API Key restrictions
  18. 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.
    Set Cloud Speech-to-Text API restrictions in Google Cloud > APIs & Services.
  19. Scroll down to the API restrictions section.
  20. Select the Restrict Key option.
  21. Choose the Cloud Speech-to-Text API drop-down option to restrict access only to this API.
  22. Click the Save button.

Integrating Transcription

To configure the bvoip phone system to use transcription for voicemails and/or recordings:

  1. Log into the bvoip phone system.
  2. Click on the Settings drop-down menu.
  3. Go to the Voicemail subsection. 
  4. Select the Options tab.
  5. Scroll down to the Transcription section. 
  6. Click on the Transcription box to open and configure the section.
    Enable voicemail transcription options in 3CX voicemail settings.
  7. In the Google Speech API Key field, paste the copied Cloud Speech-to-Text API key.
  8. In the Speech Language drop-down, set the desired transcription language.
  9. In the Select What to Transcribe drop-down, you will have three options:
    1. Voicemails Only - restrict to voicemails.
    2. Recordings Only - apply only to the first minute of audio recordings.
    3. Both Voicemails and Recordings.
  10. Click the Save button.

After enabling Voicemail Transcription, the transcribed text is included in the email body for received voicemails.