Live Captions in Teams Meetings (NOT Live Events)

[Greg Davidson]

I know that Teams offers live captions/subtitles with Live Events.  Does that same functionality exist for regular Teams meetings (i.e. not live events)?  If so, how do I turn that on?

Thanks.

[#2]

@Shalendra Chhabra  Hi Shalendra, I have a user in another organization who successfully had captioning working, but now is seeing the message "Captions stopped working unexpectedly." He needs captions to be able to participate fully in a big meeting we have coming up on Tuesday Oct. 6th. Any chance you can help troubleshoot this/ give us advice on what to do? He is in another organization, and had captions working correctly. Started getting the error message when he switched over into my organization's side of Teams. I've checked my org's MIS though, and they say the setting it enabled (ie. set up for users to be able to override). A colleague in my organization was able to successfully turn on captions in the same meeting that he got the error message. 

[#3]

@Shalendra Chhabra Hi! Will live captions be eventually added to Teams on the web? We have lots of users who can only access the web version (students) and they need live captioning for accessibility reasons.

[#4]

Yes, absolutely. We are working on it.

[#5]

Thanks! We look forward to it. Is there a timeline or roadmap item for it yet that we can follow?

[#6]

@Simple2020  I joined my team meeting sent by my interviewer today. I joined through desktop app but I did not get any captions or subtitles please help me. 

[#7]

@bsg005 One of the reasons it might happen is if the "interviewer's" tenant admin has not allowed captions to be used outside his tenancy. @Shalendra Chhabra could chime in with more details. 

[#8]

What's the latest position with regards to 'Turn on live captions' for Teams Meeting attendees external to the Teams hosting tenancy? I'm still finding that;

(a) External / Non-Microsoft 365 authenticated attendees don't have a 'Turn on live captions' option.
(b) Web-browser attendees don't have a 'Turn on live captions' option.

Despite the Teams Meeting Policy [Global (Org-wide default)] suggesting that [Enable live captions=Disabled but the user can enable] is scoped to 'Participants & guests' - it doesn't work?

[https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/ability-summit-2020/] stated "I’m thrilled to share that Microsoft Teams Free edition will soon support live captions, allowing everyone to give them a try." a year ago - it's not yet delivered?

Am I wrong? Can somebody point me in the right direction? Thx.

[#9 · Accepted solution]

Live captions in teams are available for enterprise users only. Assuming you are logged into MS teams with an enterprise account, it should show up for you. Can you also confirm the employee who can see this option is also a user under the same enterprise? There is tenant policy that the tenant admin needs to set to enable live captions, It might be worthwhile to check with your tenant admin if the right values are set. Instructions here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/meeting-policies-in-teams#enable-live-captions

[#10]

Hi, let me just add to your post that live captions are available in a Teams free org. as well.

[#11]

Thx @ChristianJBergstrom, @HardikModi, struggling. Your two responses seem to counter each other? One promoting an Enterprise licensing prerequisite and one suggesting that 'Teams free org.' is supported.

To clarify, I've no Live Captions issue for users inside the organisation (inside the tenant), it's inviting External / Anonymous attendees that are the problem. These don't see a Live Captions option - I've internal staff (I'm the tenant GlobalAdmin) promoting the use of these in meetings that they are inviting external attendees to, and the option isn't available for them.

Since the initial post, I've also found the following on UserVoice; [Allow anonymous users to enable live captions in a meeting – Welcome to UserVoice!] ... I guess Live Captions aren't available to external attendees? .

[#12]

Hello, I'm not suggesting. I am telling it's available if using a Teams free org.

AFAIK, if you want live captions to work for people outside of your org. you need to invite them as guest users (guest access with a guest account being created in your AAD) to your organization. It will not be available for anonymous users.

[#13]

Thx @ChristianJBergstrom, feeling like I need to build a matrix of what does/doesn't work ... I've not tried Teams free / personal use for meetings to see Live Captions here, but thanks for the pointer.

Though I could do with reconfirming, I think we're saying;

• Microsoft 365 licensed Teams (E3, E5, etc...) - Live Captions is available (depending on Meeting Policy config. in the tenant), but only to User Objects contained inside the corresponding AAD tenancy - both internal users and guests.
• Microsoft 365 licensed Teams (E3, E5, etc...) - Live Captions is not available for external meeting invites where the invited attendee is not represented inside the meeting hosts corresponding AAD tenancy - as a guest.
• Teams free / personal use - Live Captions is available.

Great to improve this - I really don't want the overhead of inviting each/every external meeting attendee to Teams Meetings as full Guests in my tenant just to facilitate Accessibility that should be readily available to all by default.

Can somebody confirm that really is the position?

Global Accessibility Awareness Day - #GAAD

[#14]

@naID Hello again, well the last time I read about live captions being available for guests in a org. was a post from Tony Redmond, who knows what he's talking about. On the other hand, the live captions is a per-user policy controlled by Teams meeting policy and you can't assign meeting policies to guests or other externals so I'm a bit confused to be honest.

Lets see if we can get a response from him, it would be much appreciated @Tony Redmond 

@naID and btw, I'm only saying live captions is available as an option, I haven't tried it with external users within my Teams free org. but obviously the behavior will most likely be the same as with a paid subscription. Anything else wouldn't make sense.

[#15]

No further update here ATM, @ChristianJBergstrom. Still keen to resolve this and hear from @Tony Redmond if he can add/help. Many thanks.

[Allow anonymous users to enable live captions in a meeting – Welcome to UserVoice!]

[#16]

Hello there, I'm gonna stick to my previous reply where I said "On the other hand, the live captions is a per-user policy controlled by Teams meeting policy and you can't assign meeting policies to guests or other externals."

Feel free to open up a support ticket to get an official answer though.

[#17]

AFAIK, anonymous users aren't supported for captions and I haven't heard anything about enabling this feature. Keep on lobbying!

[#18]

Thx @Tony Redmond, @ChristianJBergstrom for the prompt replies ... Let's build up the Accessibility lobbying - retweets appreciated [https://twitter.com/_IanDrew_/status/1397674077578539010?s=20].

[#19]

@Tony Redmond Since you here, you said "anonymous" but that should apply to guests/external as well referring to my previous reply just above yours.