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.
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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
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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.