The Transcription feature enables live aptioning and after-call voice transcription. It uses Speech-to-Text (STT) technology for converting spoken words into written text. When enabled, the Transcription feature appears as a widget in My Sessions and within the Attendant Console sidebar.
INC Transcription Preconditions
PRECONDITIONS
✅Related Admin Use Case: Refer to Use Case - Setting Up Transcription for detailed step-by-step instructions.
Nimbus service and user licensing
🔎Transcription features have service and user requirements. These requirements apply for either mid-session Live Caption or post-session Transcription / Summarization features.
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Service requirements Enterprise Routing Contact Center |
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User requirements Companion |
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Speech Services
🔎Features described in the following use “Speech Services” provided by 3rd party vendors. To offer our customers both convenience and flexibility, you may pick between a Nimbus-native implementation and Azure speech services.
INC Speech Recognizer service comparison
| Nimbus AI Services | Azure AI Services | |
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Optional: Power Automate connector integration
🔎Optional step: The Nimbus Power Automate Connector can extract Transcription/Summarization data for implementing additional use cases. To achieve this, the following steps need to be performed by an administrator:
- You need to set up a Power Automate flow that uses the “Companion” Trigger Event to react to any ongoing transcription session event.
- You then require the “Companion” Flow Action to capture the data for any further processing.
💡Some Use Case examples from our Knowledge Base:
Live Captioning
INC Preview Feature
This feature is in PREVIEW and may not yet be available to all customers. Functionality, scope and design may change considerably.
✅ Precondition: To use Live Captioning functionality, Transcription (as part of the Companion license) must be set up first → See general preconditions above.
Live captions are audio transcriptions generated real-time during call sessions. When a call is accepted, a bot is invited to the call in order to start the audio transcription of the session. As a user, you see your spoken conversation with the caller in the Live Caption widget. Live Caption is only visible during ongoing calls, visible in either My Sessions as “Companion” widget and within the sidebar of Attendant Console .
Transcription
When the call session is ended, the live caption is saved as a transcript. This process may take a bit, depending on how long your call with the customer was.
⮑ Once the final transcription is processed, it appears in the Companion widget.
💡Good to know:
Transcription access
- Within My Sessions you can also access past session transcripts by clicking on a concluded session. If available, the transcript of the session is then opened in the “Companion” widget. Note that a transcript will only be created when the feature was enabled before the Nimbus session started.
- Transcription features are also available in Attendant Console within the sidebar.
- When you have After-Call Work (ACW) enabled on this service, you may see a message: "Your transcription is currently being processed and will be shown shortly" because the session is still technically not “done” yet. This message may also be shown on very long transcripts that are still being processed.
- Note that once the feature is enabled on service level, Transcription is always enabled for Nimbus users, as long as they have the “Companion” license.1
Data access and Retention
- Companion Service Settings steer the Transcription feature availability to users, as well as the data storage retention time.
- You can also opt-in to and show a Summarization of the transcript. The same access and storage rules apply.
- All data generated by Transcription can be retrieved and handled by Nimbus Power Automate Connector, using respective “Companion” Flow Actions and Trigger Events.
1💡 We are actively are working on improvements to allow for more flexible opt-out in future. → If you wish to offer your callers an opt-out from transcription in your services, we recommend to transfer the call to a Nimbus service where this feature is disabled.
Customer Opt-Out of Transcription
Customer Opt-Out of Transcription
The Opt-out of Transcription feature allows callers to withhold consent before the conversation is transcribed. When consent is not granted, Nimbus skips the entire transcription routine for that call — no live caption, no transcript, no summary, no codes & tags suggestions — and carries that decision across transfers so it is honored for the whole call journey.
🔍 How is consent expressed? Through the Record Consent Conversation Handling workflow activity, which you add to your IVR before the call reaches a Nimbus user. The rest of this page covers how to set that up, what the Nimbus user sees, and what stops happening.
Preconditions
INC Transcription Preconditions
PRECONDITIONS
✅Related Admin Use Case: Refer to Use Case - Setting Up Transcription for detailed step-by-step instructions.
Nimbus service and user licensing
🔎Transcription features have service and user requirements. These requirements apply for either mid-session Live Caption or post-session Transcription / Summarization features.
|
Service requirements Enterprise Routing Contact Center |
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User requirements Companion |
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Speech Services
🔎Features described in the following use “Speech Services” provided by 3rd party vendors. To offer our customers both convenience and flexibility, you may pick between a Nimbus-native implementation and Azure speech services.
INC Speech Recognizer service comparison
| Nimbus AI Services | Azure AI Services | |
|---|---|---|
| Benefits |
|
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| Challenges |
|
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| Setup |
|
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Optional: Power Automate connector integration
🔎Optional step: The Nimbus Power Automate Connector can extract Transcription/Summarization data for implementing additional use cases. To achieve this, the following steps need to be performed by an administrator:
- You need to set up a Power Automate flow that uses the “Companion” Trigger Event to react to any ongoing transcription session event.
- You then require the “Companion” Flow Action to capture the data for any further processing.
💡Some Use Case examples from our Knowledge Base:
✅In addition to the standard Transcription preconditions, the opt-out flow requires an “IVR” step in your Workflow that asks the caller for consent and records the outcome using the Record Consent Workflow Activity.
How it Works
The opt-out flow comes down to four moments in the life of a call:
- The IVR asks the caller for consent — using an Input Customer or Input Customer (Advanced) Workflow Activity that informs the caller their conversation may be transcribed and captures their yes/no response.
- The workflow records the answer using the Record Consent activity — set to Granted when the caller agreed, Not Granted when they declined. If the activity is not included in the workflow at all, Nimbus treats the call as consent granted.
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The call is distributed to a Nimbus user. When the Nimbus user connects, Nimbus checks the consent outcome:
- Granted (or no Record Consent activity in the workflow) → transcription, summarization, and codes & tags suggestions all run as usual.
- Not Granted → none of them are started for this session.
- The decision travels with the call. If the call is transferred, parked/unparked, or re-distributed to a different Nimbus user or service, the consent outcome is carried along automatically. A "not granted" stays in effect for the whole journey, unless the workflow on the receiving service explicitly re-asks the caller and records a new outcome.
Setting Up Opt-out in Your Workflow
The opt-out flow is configured entirely in your service Workflow. There is no dedicated admin page or tenant-level toggle — the consent decision is per call and lives in the workflow.
- Navigate to Nimbus Administration > Configuration > Workflows and open the workflow you want to add the opt-out to.
- Accept the call as usual.
- Add an Input Customer or Input Customer (Advanced) activity that informs the caller their conversation may be transcribed and asks them to confirm.
💡 Example: "This call may be transcribed and summarized for quality and follow-up. Press 1 to agree, press 2 to decline." - Based on the caller's input, add a Record Consent activity and set the outcome:
- Caller agreed → set to Granted
- Caller declined → set to Not Granted
- Continue the workflow as usual — route the caller to the correct queue or service.
Configuration Scenarios
✅ Default is permissive. If you do not include the Record Consent activity in your workflow, every call is treated as consent granted. You only need to add the consent step for services where opting out should be possible.
🔍 Re-asking on transfer: If a call moves between services with different sensitivity levels (e.g. general hotline → HR or financial), the destination workflow can ask the consent question again using a new Record Consent activity. A caller can switch from Granted to Not Granted at the new touchpoint — and the other way around.
🔍 Overriding consent without asking the caller: You can add a Record Consent activity with a hardcoded outcome to control consent for specific routing paths — for example, to always block transcription on certain escalation paths, or to grant consent automatically when it has been obtained through other means (e.g. a web form).
Caller Consent Scenarios
| Scenario | What happens |
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Caller declines transcription A❌ |
The caller is informed at the start of the call that the conversation may be transcribed and chooses to decline. Nimbus disables transcription for the entire session, including any subsequent transfers. Typical examples: medical or health-related questions, financial topics, or HR cases where sensitive information will be discussed. |
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Caller agrees to transcription A✅ |
The caller agrees. Transcript and summary are produced as usual and can later be stored in the CRM or used for quality assurance. The caller may also request a copy through the channels your organization provides. |
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Caller agrees, then revokes consent on transfer A✅→B❌ |
The caller agreed at the general hotline, but the conversation is transferred to a department where sensitive information will be discussed. The destination workflow re-asks the consent question and the caller declines — the new Not Granted outcome overwrites the previous Granted and transcription stops for the rest of the call. |
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Caller declines, then gives consent on transfer A❌→B✅ |
The caller declined at the reception line but is transferred to a service where they would like a record — for example, step-by-step technical guidance they may want to re-read. The destination workflow re-asks the consent question and the caller agrees — transcription starts from that point onward. |
What the Nimbus User Sees
The Nimbus user's experience changes only inside the Companion widget and the Transcription tab. The Transcription behavior will be as follows:
| ✅ Consent granted (or no Record Consent activity in the workflow) | ❌ Consent not granted |
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| Capability | Behavior when consent is Not Granted |
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| Live caption | Not shown. The Companion widget displays the "no consent granted" message instead. |
| Transcript | Not generated. Nothing is stored against the session or retained for the tenant. |
| Summary | Not generated. The Summary section displays the matching no-consent message. |
| Codes & Tags AI suggestions | Not offered. The Nimbus user can still set codes & tags manually. |
| Transfers / hand-overs | The consent outcome travels with the call. A "not granted" remains in effect at the next Nimbus user or service, unless the receiving workflow re-asks the caller using a new Record Consent activity. |
| Park / unpark | Consent is preserved across the park window — the call resumes in the same state when unparked. |
| Routing & distribution | Unaffected. Calls are distributed exactly as the service settings dictate. |
💡The Nimbus user does not need to do anything differently. The widget makes the consent status visible so it is clear why the AI features are absent for this call. See Transcription for the full feature description.
Reporting
- Per-session reporting records whether the call ran with consent granted or denied.
- When consent is denied, Nimbus emits a dedicated Transcription Consent Denied event for the session. This is useful to confirm that the opt-out was honored.
Limitations
INC Opt-out of Transcription Limitations
- Set at IVR time, not mid-call. Consent is captured by the workflow before the agent connects. There is currently no in-call control for the caller or the agent to change the decision once the conversation is underway. The closest workaround is a transfer to a workflow that re-asks the question.
- MS Teams calls only. The consent check is enforced for calls routed through the Microsoft Teams driver. Other drivers are not in scope.
- Distribution is not consent-aware. Routing and distribution policies do not change based on the consent outcome. Consent only affects whether transcription, summarization, and AI suggestions run.
- Default is permissive. If the Record Consent activity is not included in the workflow, every call is treated as consent granted. To make opt-out available to callers, the workflow must include the consent step.
- Virtual User transcription respects the same consent outcome — see the related Virtual User transcription feature for details.
Transcription in other areas
Automated Voicemail Transcription
You can use transcription features to automatically transcribe incoming voicemails. Once a caller is asked to leave a voicemail via workflow, a “transcript” will be generated and added to the Adaptive Card.
✅Optional Feature - Requires Transcription preconditions to be met (and “Voicemail Transcription" to be enabled within Modalities Service Settings.
Your workflow requires a “Voice Message” activity to trigger the generation of a voicemail.
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Known Limitations
INC Transcription Limitations
KNOWN TRANSCRIPTION & SUMMARIZATION LIMITATIONS
💡We are actively working on further improvements to the following limitations:
- Transcription data is not part of service/user transfers. Data is kept within the current customer/user session.
- Transcription > Summarization features are still in preview. The Summarization is only available on My Sessions.
Troubleshooting FAQ
INC Transcription Troubleshooting
Not seeing any transcripts in the Transcript widget can have several causes. The following table lists error messages and explains why they are shown.
| Message shown | 🤔 Why do I see the message? |
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| No transcription is available for this interaction. |
There was no transcription generated for the selected conversation. This could happen …
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No transcription is available for this interaction OR Task was not accepted. |
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| Transcription not available for this session. No consent granted. |
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| User Transcription License is missing. |
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BY DESIGN
💡The following points are not limitations.
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Feature availability:
- Transcription is a prerequisite to Live Captioning and Summarization. A working Speech Recognizer must be configured to use all features.
- Transcription relies on external services and APIs. When the feature is disabled or unavailable (e.g. throttling, settings or Microsoft service impediments) info messages are shown in the frontend UI widget. Nimbus task handling and user-customer interactions themselves are not affected by this and will continue normally.
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Transcription scope:
- 3rd-party participants: Third parties and call conference attendees are not part of the content transcribed. Only the transcription between the Nimbus user and the customer is kept.
- Supervision - As long as Supervisors remain in Listen or Whisper mode during a conversation, their voice is not being transcribed. Only during ”Barge In" they are part of the conversation and transcription is active.
- Summarization items generated from the Transcription might be missing when there is not enough data to draw from.