Using Teams as a transcription device

Use Teams live captions for accessibility without retaining a written treatment record; if each person must be named while 6–8 people share one room microphone, configure Intelligent Speaker recognition and have every speaker enroll a voice profile.

What Teams can provide

• Live captions display speech in real time with speaker attribution but are not saved.
• Live transcription displays a real-time transcript and saves it afterward with timestamps and speaker attribution in OneDrive or SharePoint. ^1^
• During a meeting, select More actions → Language and speech → Turn on live captions for captions, or More actions → Transcribe, select the spoken language, and select Confirm for a saved transcript. The exact available wording can vary by Teams client. ^2^

For treatment sessions, captions are the lower-retention choice when no saved record is required. Confirm the County’s consent, health-record, and retention requirements before enabling transcription. Teams can also require participant agreement before recording or transcription. ^3^

Identifying 6–8 people sharing one room

A normal shared microphone may attribute speech only to the room. To identify individuals by name, use either:

• Teams Rooms: Teams Rooms on Windows or Android with a Teams Rooms Pro license.
• BYOD room: A current Teams desktop client on Windows or macOS, with the room host licensed for Teams Premium or Copilot.

Six to eight participants are within Microsoft’s recommended maximum of 10 in-person attendees for best recognition precision. For either option:

1. The organizer’s mailbox must be in Exchange Online. Identification is unsupported with on-premises Exchange or third-party calendars.
2. Schedule a Teams meeting and invite each speaker individually.
3. Each person who should appear by name must use an appropriate organizational Teams identity and create a voice profile in desktop Teams under Settings → Recognition.
4. Where available, each speaker should also check Settings → Captions and transcripts → Automatically identify me in meeting captions and transcripts.
5. Enable transcription and speaker-recognition policies.
6. Have the deaf client join as an authenticated participant; anonymous participants cannot view the live transcript. ^2^

These requirements and licensing differences are documented in the Intelligent Speaker guidance. ^4^

Tasks for the County’s Teams administrator

Enable Transcription and permit Live captions under Teams admin center → Meetings → Meeting policies. Both the organizer and the person starting transcription must be covered by a policy that permits transcription. ^1^

For a Teams Room, apply Attribute mode to the policy assigned to the Teams Rooms account. For BYOD, enable speaker attribution:

# Permit transcription and named speaker attribution.
Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity "<PolicyName>" `
  -AllowTranscription $true `
  -RoomAttributeUserOverride Attribute

# Required for speaker recognition in a BYOD meeting space.
Set-CsTeamsAiPolicy -Identity Global -SpeakerAttributionForBYOD Enabled

Policy changes can take up to 48 hours; signing out and back in can apply them sooner. Under Attribute mode, enrolled people appear by name while unenrolled people appear as Speaker. If displaying names is unnecessary, an administrator can use Distinguish instead, which separates voices as Speaker 1, Speaker 2, and so forth without names. ^4^

Voice profiles require participant opt-in. People can choose not to be identified, and incorrect identification can be corrected from the meeting transcript. ^5^

Run a complete trial in the actual treatment room before relying on it: test microphone placement, overlapping speech, the selected spoken language, the client’s view of both captions and the transcript pane, and every participant’s attribution. Automated captions and voice recognition can make errors and should not be treated as guaranteed accommodation accuracy; consider professional CART captioning if verified human accuracy is required.

References

1. Admins - Manage transcription and captions for Teams meetings
2. Start, stop, and download live transcripts in Microsoft Teams meetings
3. Manage Microsoft Teams meeting recording and transcription options for sensitive meetings
4. Manage voice recognition for Intelligent Speaker
5. Use Microsoft Teams Rooms to identify in-room participants in a meeting transcription