The Vodia PBX integrates with the Google Translate API to transcribe voicemail recordings into text; this text is then included in voicemail notification emails. To enable this feature, you’ll need a Google Cloud account, along with an active Voice API subscription key - this can be created under “APIs & Services” in the Google Cloud Console. This API key, which should be restricted for security, is entered into the Vodia PBX system to activate transcription capabilities. For multi-tenant setups, voicemail transcription can be managed per domain or disabled for specific extensions, offering flexible control over API usage.
Google offers a powerful API for converting speech into text. The Vodia PBX is currently using this feature to convert voicemail recordings into text format; it includes that text in the voicemail notification, which is typically sent to the user by email. This API must be enabled in the Google Cloud Console.
After you have set up an account with Google Cloud, make sure you provide your credit card information so you can enable the Voice API. You will also have to create a project that holds the API key. You can do this in “APIs & Services” in the Dashboard area.
Activating Google Cloud Subscription Key
After you have created a project, you need to navigate to the “Credentials” area, where you can create new credentials for your project. You need to create a new API Key.
You should then restrict the key by some means (e.g., by limiting it to your server IP address) so nobody else can use that key unless it's used from that IP address.
Enable Voicemail Transcription in Vodia PBX
After you have set up your account on the Google console, copy the API Key into the PBX in admin mode, General/Settings/Notifications. There you can also determine if domains should have the feature enabled or not, unless you set it explicitly in the domain settings.
Multi-Tenant Scenario
In some cases, you would want to disable the Google API per extension. To disable, go the main page of your domain page and click on the edit button, scroll down to "Enable voicemail to text API" and switch it to off.
Modern business communication rarely happens within a single office or PBX environment. With V70 of the Vodia PBX, organizations and service providers can now share presence information between tenants and across separate PBX systems. External Presence Sharing extends BLF visibility beyond a single deployment, helping distributed teams maintain awareness of user availability across locations, departments, and communication environments while supporting more connected and flexible business communications.
V70.2 introduces more flexible licensing for multi-tenant PBX deployments by allowing service providers to assign prepaid licenses directly to tenants within a postpaid environment. Once assigned, the tenant uses the prepaid license independently, and the underlying postpaid license no longer counts that tenant. This gives MSPs and hosted PBX providers more flexibility in how they structure customer licensing while continuing to operate tenants on shared infrastructure, reducing operating costs and simplifying large-scale multi-tenant deployments.
Austrian MSP my Tweak Telekom completed two Vodia PBX deployments in Vienna, helping Pension Suzanne modernize its hotel communications and enabling New Business Verlag GmbH to upgrade from a legacy on-premise phone system to a hosted cloud PBX. The projects demonstrate how businesses can modernize legacy telephony infrastructure, improve operational flexibility, preserve existing hardware investments, and deliver better communication experiences with cloud-based unified communications.