Transcribe Recorded Calls With Twilio

With Twilio and Deepgram you can record and transcribe your phone calls.

The wealth of knowledge in the conversations that happen during your sales and support calls can be left untapped without automatic transcription. Using Deepgram’s Transcription API, you can gather the data you need to make informed decisions about your organization’s interactions.

The demo code in this guide uses an older version of our Node SDK. A new version of our SDK is now available. A migration guide is available.

Before You Begin

The example provided is written in Node.js, and you can find the code on GitHub.

Before you run the code, you’ll need to do a few things:

Before you can use Deepgram, you’ll need to create a Deepgram account. Signup is free and includes $200 in free credit and access to all of Deepgram’s features!

Create a Deepgram API Key

To access Deepgram’s API, you’ll need to create a Deepgram API Key. Make note of your API Key; you will need it later.

Gather Twilio Credentials

This application uses Twilio Voice to start a phone call that will be recorded and transcribed. Before you can use Twilio products, you’ll need to sign up for a Twilio account.

To use the sample application, you’ll need a Twilio Account SID and Twilio Auth Token. These can both be found within your Twilio account dashboard.

Getting Started

You can run this application on your local computer.

Configure the Settings

Your application will need to know more about you before it can run successfully. Edit the environment variables (.env) to reflect the settings you want to use:

  • YOUR_TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID: The Account SID from your Twilio Account Dashboard.
  • YOUR_TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN: The Auth Token from your Twilio Account Dashboard.
  • DG_KEY: The API Key you created earlier in this tutorial.

Once these variables are set, the application should run automatically.

Run on localhost

To run this project on your local computer you will need to clone the repository, configure the settings, install the dependencies, and start the server.

Clone the Repository

Either clone or download the GitHub repository to your local machine in a new directory:

Bash
$# Clone this repo
>git clone https://github.com/deepgram-devs/recorded-call-transcription.git
>
># Move to the created directory
>cd recorded-call-transcription

Configure the Settings

Your application will need to know more about you before it can run. Copy the.env-example file into a new file named .env, and edit the new file to reflect the settings you want to use:

  • DG_KEY: The API Key you created earlier in this tutorial.
  • YOUR_TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID: The Account SID from your Twilio Account Dashboard.
  • YOUR_TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN: The Auth Token from your Twilio Account Dashboard.

Create a Virtual Environment (optional)

Create a virtual Python environment to run the server in isolation and prevent version collisions with other projects. (You can skip this part if you don’t mind installing things system-wide.)

Bash
$# Create the virtual environment
># (Must be run only once.)
>python3 -m venv dg-twilio-ve
>
># Activate the virtual environment
># (Must be run every time you open a new terminal.)
>source dg-twilio-ve/bin/activate
># Your prompt should start with `(dg-twilio-ve)`.
>
># python3 and pip3 will now run in this virtual environment.
># If you want to deactivate this environment, type `deactivate`.

Install the Dependencies

In the directory where you downloaded the code, run the following command to bring in the dependencies needed for this project:

Bash
$pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Start the Server

Now that you have configured your application and put the dependencies in place, your application is ready to go! Run it with:

Bash
$FLASK_APP=server.py FLASK_ENV=development flask run

Code Walk-through

The application uses Flask to serve a website that generates a phone call to a phone number you provide. Once the call has concluded, a recording is sent to the Deepgram API for transcription. Once the transcription has been returned, the website displays the results.

Sending Recordings to the Deepgram API

When a call ends, the application calls the /transcribe/ endpoint, passing a URL that was provided by Twilio to the call’s recording. The server then sends that URL to Deepgram to transcribe. Once the transcription is complete, the application returns it to the front-end as a JSON object.

Python
1@app.route('/transcribe/', methods=['POST'])
2def transcribe() -> dict:
3    body = json.loads(request.data)
4    print("got request in transcribe:", body)
5    print('sending recording to deepgram')
6    # Submit the recording to Deepgram
7    deepgram_req = requests.post(
8        'https://api.deepgram.com/v1/listen?punctuate=true',
9        headers={'Authorization': 'token ' + DEEPGRAM_API_KEY,
10                 "content-type": "application/json"},
11        json={"url": body["audio_url"]}
12    )
13    print('done processing request, sending deepgram response back to client',
14          deepgram_req.text)
15    return json.loads(deepgram_req.text)

What’s Next

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