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.