Voicemail to Email: Get Every Message in Your Inbox, with Recording and Transcript

What it actually is

A regular voicemail box works like an answering machine: someone leaves a message, and the box owner has to dial in, enter a code, and listen to the messages one after another. It works, but it's slow, and you can't do it in the middle of a meeting or while riding public transportation.

Voicemail to email reverses the direction. Instead of you going to the message, the message comes to you. Every new message left in the box is sent to one or more email addresses within a few minutes. What arrives in the email depends on what you chose: a notification only, an audio file of the message, or a full transcript of what was said.

Why it helps day to day

• Read it in a second, listen when needed. You can scan an email with a transcript in two seconds and decide whether it's urgent. You open the recording only when you want to hear the tone or check a detail.
• Forward it with a click. A message that reached the front office but belongs to billing is passed on by forwarding the email. No need to write a note saying "Yaakov called about the payment."
• No message gets lost. A message in a box nobody checks is a message that doesn't exist. A message in your inbox stays there, with the date and number, and it's easy to search for.
• Works for people away from the phone, too. A bochur in yeshiva, an employee on shift, a manager abroad — everyone reads email.

Two ways to get a message by email

There are two ways, and they differ in what reaches your inbox.

The basic way: email from the PBX. Each voicemail box's settings have an "Email for Messages" field. Every new message is sent to the address entered there. Next to it is an "Attach Message File to Email" switch: when it's on, the audio file is attached to the email and you can play it right from your phone or computer. When it's off, the email only tells you there's a new message, and you listen to the message on the phone or in the control panel.

The full way: message transcription by email. This is an additional option that transcribes every message and sends an email with the text. It suits people who get a lot of messages, or who would rather read than listen.

What the transcript email includes

A few minutes after the message was left, a single email arrives. Its subject line says it's a voice message, who called, when, how long the message lasted and which box it's in. That way you can filter and sort in your inbox before you even open it. If the caller's number is hidden, it says "Private Number."

In the body of the email:

• Message details — the caller, the date and time, the length and the box.
• The transcript — what was said, as text. The full transcript is also attached as a text file, handy for saving or copying.
• A listening link — the recording itself isn't attached as a file; it opens from a link. The link stays active for 90 days.

Message transcription has no minimum length. Even a five-second message — "Call me back, it's Yaakov" — is transcribed and sent.

If transcription didn't succeed, the email still arrives, with the listening link and a note that transcription failed and that the message wasn't charged. A message is never lost because of a transcription glitch.

One email, not two

What happens if a voicemail box already has PBX email set up, and you turn on transcription for it too? Without special handling, every message would arrive twice: once as an audio file, and once with the transcript. That's confusing, and very quickly people start ignoring both emails.

So while transcription is on for a box, the PBX email is turned off, and each address gets only one email — the one with the transcript and the link. When you turn transcription off, the PBX email goes back to the same addresses, just as before. There's no need to remember to turn it back on manually.

Transcripts are sent to the addresses entered in the box's "Email for Messages" field. In other words, there's one place where you decide where the box's messages go, no matter which way you chose.

From when it works

Transcription works from the moment it's turned on. Messages that were already in the box before that are not sent. If the box has older messages you want to keep, listen to them or download them in the Voicemail Boxes screen before you start.

Even a message someone already heard on the phone, before the email was sent, is still transcribed and sent. And the other way around: sending the email doesn't mark the message as "heard." Anyone who checks the box by phone will still hear it as a new message, so the email doesn't "steal" messages from people used to working by phone.

Faxes that arrive in the box are not sent as transcripts. Faxes have their own screen in the control panel, and they arrive as a file, not as audio.

How to turn it on

Regular email from the PBX:

1. In the control panel, open the Voicemail Boxes screen and click Manage Box on the box you want.
2. Enter an address in the "Email for Messages" field.
3. Decide whether to turn on "Attach Message File to Email," and save.

Message transcription by email:

1. In the same box editor, make sure there's an address in the "Email for Messages" field. If there isn't, add one and save first.
2. Scroll down to the Message Transcription by Email section.
3. Click the "Transcribe Every New Message" switch. A confirmation window opens with the price.
4. Review and confirm. The switch changes to "On," and below it you'll see the date transcription has been active from.

Transcription here doesn't need a recording group. On regular calls, transcription requires the line to be recorded, but in a voicemail box the message itself is the recording.

Who can turn it on

Only users with the "Manage Transcription" permission see this section. If it doesn't appear for you in the box editor, that's why, and your organization's system administrator can add the permission.

The Voicemail Boxes screen also separates permissions: someone who manages a box's settings isn't necessarily allowed to hear other people's messages, and deleting messages is a separate permission, because it can't be undone. That way you can let one employee set up the boxes without hearing everyone's personal messages.

How much it costs

Regular email from the PBX is a setting of the box itself. Transcription has a separate price: the price for your account appears in the box's section, and again in the confirmation window, before anything is turned on. In the first month, the charge is prorated by days. The Transcription screen in the control panel shows the current prices and every box where transcription is on.

Personal address or shared address

Before you turn it on, it's worth thinking about whom the messages belong to.

A personal box — for a rav, a manager, a bochur in yeshiva. Messages are sent to his private address, and only he reads them.

A department box — for the front office, billing, customer service. Here a shared address that several people read is better, or several addresses together. That way a message doesn't get stuck with someone who's on vacation.

With a department box, it's also worth agreeing in advance who handles what. The simple way: whoever handles a message replies to the rest of the team with "Done," and everyone knows there's no need to call the person back a second time.

Examples from the field

An accounting firm. In the evening and on Shabbat, the main number goes to voicemail. In the morning, the secretary opens her email, reads the transcripts from the whole night in a minute, and sorts them: this one for the accountant, this one for the clerk, and this one already resolved itself. Before transcription, she used to listen to twenty messages in a row.

A yeshiva. Each bochur has a personal voicemail box, and parents leave messages there. A bochur who has an email address gets the messages straight to his inbox and reads them during a break, without waiting in line for the public phone.

A chesed organization. People leave messages when the hotline is closed. Messages that arrive with a transcript are read in the morning and passed to the right volunteer by area. Details like an address and a time are kept in the text, and no one has to listen to the message three times to write them down.

A manager abroad. He doesn't answer the phone during Israeli hours, but he reads email. Messages reach him with a transcript, and he replies by email or asks the office to call the person back.

Common mistakes

• An email nobody reads. The box's address belongs to an employee who left, or to a general inbox nobody opens. The messages arrive, and nobody sees them. It's worth reviewing the addresses every few months. The advanced search screen finds every place a given address appears.
• A box with no address. You want to turn on transcription, but the box doesn't have an email address yet. First add an address in the "Email for Messages" field and save, and only then turn on transcription.
• Messages lost in spam. For the first few days, check your spam folder and mark the email as "Not spam" so the next messages reach your main inbox.
• An orphaned box. A box whose owner has already been removed from the system, and nobody listens to its messages. The Voicemail Boxes screen has a scan button that finds boxes like these. We recommend deleting them, or at least sending their messages to the address of whoever is responsible.
• A greeting that doesn't fit. If the greeting promises "We'll get back to you today," someone really has to read the emails that day. A good greeting only promises what you deliver.

Messages and privacy

A voice message is sometimes very personal: a medical matter, a request for help, a debt. When it reaches email, it also sits in the inbox, and it's kept there under the mailbox's rules, not the PBX's.

So it's best to send a personal box's messages only to a personal address, and to give a department box only the addresses of people who really need to read them. The listening link in the email stays active for 90 days, and after that the recording no longer opens from it. Transcripts in the "My Transcripts" screen are also kept for 90 days.

Whoever receives the messages by email can of course delete them from the inbox. The message in the box itself stays until it's deleted by phone or in the control panel.