Voicemail Transcription in FusionPBX 5.3

Overview

This document provides a step-by-step guide for setting up the email transcription service in FusionPBX version 5.3. It supports various service providers such as OpenAI, Google, Azure, or a custom solution.

Step-by-Step

1. Log in to FusionPBX

   • Access the FusionPBX administrative interface.

2. Check for the “Transcribe” Option

   • Navigate to Advanced > Default Settings.

   • Use the drop-down filter to select “Transcribe”.

   • If the “Transcribe” option is already available, skip to step 5. Otherwise, proceed to step 3.

3. Install the Transcribe and Speech Apps

   • SSH into your server and run the following commands:

     cd /var/www/fusionpbx/app
     git clone https://github.com/fusionpbx/fusionpbx-app-transcribe.git transcribe
     git clone https://github.com/fusionpbx/fusionpbx-app-speech.git speech
     chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/fusionpbx
     php /var/www/fusionpbx/core/upgrade/upgrade.php
     

4. Reload the FusionPBX Interface

• Navigate back to Advanced > Default Settings.

• The “Transcribe” section should now be available.

5. Configure Transcription Settings

• In the “Transcribe” category, enable the following settings:

Subcategory	Type	Value	Enabled	Description
api_key	text	secret_key	true	Speech to Text API key
api_url	text	https://api…	false	Leave this alone unless using a custom service
enabled	boolean	true	true	Speech to Text Enabled
engine	text	openai	true	Options: openai, google, azure, custom

• Click Reload to apply the changes.

6. Enable Transcription for a Single Extension

   • Navigate to Accounts > Extensions.

   • Select the desired extension.

   • Set Transcription Enabled to True.

7. Enable Transcription by Default for All Extensions

   • Navigate to Advanced > Default Settings.

   • Use the drop-down filter to select “Voicemail”.

   • Enable the transcription_enabled_default setting.

8. Test the Service

   • Leave a voicemail for the enabled extension to verify that the transcription works correctly.

Note

The primary function handling voicemail transcriptions is defined in transcribe.php.

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Voicemail Transcription in FusionPBX 5.2 and Older

Uses API services to transcribe voicemails into text for use in the app-sms and voicemail-to-email options. Bing’s Speech API or other generic APIs can be used.

IBM Watson API

Sign up and language information is located on IBM Watson’s Site.

Warning

We cannot use mod_shout to record voicemails because the transcription service needs an uncompressed version of the audio. Therefore, we will record in WAV and then use LAME to re-encode in MP3. This could cause added resource utilization to your system.

Go to Advanced > Default Settings.
Add the following entries:

Category	Subcategory	Type	Value	Enabled
voicemail	transcribe_provider	text	watson	True
voicemail	watson_key	text	{your watson key}	True
voicemail	watson_url	text	{watson url}	True
voicemail	transcribe_language	text	en-US	True
voicemail	transcribe_enabled	boolean	true	True
voicemail	json_enabled	boolean	true	True

Note

Watson URL used for testing was:
https://example.url.api.us-south.speech-to-text.watson.cloud.ibm.com/instances/{GUID}/v1/recognize?model=en-US_Telephony&smart_formatting=true*

List of available IBM Watson speech-to-text models:
https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/speech-to-text?topic=speech-to-text-models

Click “Reload” at the top of the page.

Go to Status > SIP Status.
Click “Flush Cache”, “Reload XML”, and “Rescan”.

If you entered your keys correctly, you should now start getting transcriptions delivered in your voicemail-to-email and see them on the Messages page.

Azure API

Go to Advanced > Default Settings.
Add the following entries:

Category	Subcategory	Type	Value	Enabled
voicemail	transcribe_provider	text	azure	True
voicemail	azure_key	text	{your azure key}	True
voicemail	azure_server_region	text	{your server region}	True
voicemail	transcribe_language	text	en-US	True
voicemail	transcribe_enabled	boolean	true	True
voicemail	json_enabled	boolean	true	True

Click “Reload” at the top of the page.

Go to Status > SIP Status.
Click “Flush Cache”, “Reload XML”, and “Rescan”.

If you entered your keys correctly, you should now start getting transcriptions delivered in your voicemail-to-email and see them on the Messages page.

Google API

Go to Advanced > Default Settings.
Add the following entries:

Category	Subcategory	Type	Value	Enabled
voicemail	transcribe_provider	text	google	True
voicemail	google_key	text	{your google key}	True
voicemail	google_url	text	{your google url}	True
voicemail	transcribe_language	text	en-US	True
voicemail	transcribe_enabled	boolean	true	True
voicemail	json_enabled	boolean	true	True

Click “Reload” at the top of the page.

Go to Status > SIP Status.
Click “Flush Cache”, “Reload XML”, and “Rescan”.

If you entered your keys correctly, you should now start getting transcriptions delivered in your voicemail-to-email and see them on the Messages page.

Bing API

Recommend using Azure as an alternative to Bing.

Sign up and language information is located on Microsoft Site.
Note: The Bing Speech API is deprecated as of October 2018; this works for now but needs to be ported to the new API.

Warning

We cannot use mod_shout to record voicemails because the transcription service needs an uncompressed version of the audio. Therefore, we will record in WAV and then use LAME to re-encode in MP3. This could cause added resource utilization to your system.

Go to Advanced > Default Settings.
Add the following entries:

Category	Subcategory	Type	Value	Enabled
voicemail	transcribe_provider	text	microsoft	True
voicemail	microsoft_key1	text	{your microsoft key #1}	True
voicemail	microsoft_key2	text	{your microsoft key #2}	True
voicemail	transcribe_language	text	en-US	True
voicemail	transcribe_enabled	boolean	true	True

Click “Reload” at the top of the page.

Go to Status > SIP Status.
Click “Flush Cache”, “Reload XML”, and “Rescan”.

If you entered your keys correctly, you should now start getting transcriptions delivered in your voicemail-to-email and see them on the Messages page.

Custom API

Currently does not work with the FusionPBX email_queue.

API info from the Speech-to-Text provider of your choice is needed, or you can self-host a transcription engine like Mozilla DeepSpeech or Kaldi ASR.

Go to Advanced > Default Settings.
Add the following entries:

Category	Subcategory	Type	Value	Enabled	Required?
voicemail	transcribe_provider	text	custom	True
voicemail	transcription_server	text	https://yourserver	True
voicemail	json_enabled	boolean	true	True	Optional
voicemail	api_key	text	your_api_key	True	Optional
voicemail	transcribe_language	text	en-US	True
voicemail	transcribe_enabled	boolean	true	True

Click “Reload” at the top of the page.

Go to Status > SIP Status.