Automatic captions get better when they know your community's words. This guide walks through the SentraCaptions tools that help clerks and IT staff fix the errors that matter most, before, during and after a meeting.
Before the meeting: teach the system your words
Build a glossary of local names
The caption errors residents notice most are often not everyday words but names: council members, staff, streets, neighborhoods and local programs. Speech recognition has no way of knowing that a street in your city is spelled an unusual way.
The SentraCaptions glossary is a list of local names that helps speech recognition spell them right. A good starting list includes:
- Council members, supervisors, commissioners and key staff
- Streets, parks and neighborhoods that come up often
- Program names, local acronyms and project names
- Names of boards, committees and commissions
Update it when membership changes or a new project starts to appear on agendas. See a caption glossary for local names for more ideas.
Add autocorrect rules for repeat mistakes
Some errors keep coming back even with a glossary. For those, add an autocorrect rule written as wrong => right. Autocorrect rules are applied to every caption before translation, so the fix carries into every language. New rules take effect live, within seconds, so you can add one during a meeting when you notice a pattern.
Set fixed translations for key terms
Some terms should always translate the same way, such as a program name or an official title. SentraCaptions supports fixed translations for terms, available for Spanish today. This keeps important terms consistent for Spanish-speaking residents from one meeting to the next.
During the meeting: review and speaker names
Use the live correction desk when it matters
For some meetings, a few seconds of delay is worth it to catch errors before residents see them. The live correction desk is an optional human review step. You set a review delay of 5 to 30 seconds per meeting.
Each caption waits on the desk for that time. An operator can fix it, hold it, send it now or drop it. When a caption is fixed, translations are redone from the fix. Viewers see captions that much later than usual. Captions still waiting when captioning stops are sent, not lost.
The desk is off by default. Without it, captions typically appear about a second after speech in our own tests. You might use the desk only for meetings with heavy public interest or many unfamiliar names. Our article on human review for live captions covers when the delay is worth it.
Add speaker names
Knowing who is speaking makes captions much easier to follow. Speech recognition tells voices apart as Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on. An operator types a name on the live desk, for example "Councilmember Rivera". From then on, captions show that name when the speaker changes, on the chamber screen, residents' phones, Zoom and transcripts.
It does not identify people automatically. Labels can change after captioning restarts, such as after a recess, so check names after a break. See showing who's speaking in live meeting captions.
Pause for recess and closed session
Pausing keeps captions clean and avoids captioning side conversations. While paused, nothing is captioned, translated, stored or billed, and the screens show "Paused". See pausing captions for recess and closed session.
After the meeting: fix the transcript and teach the fix
Transcripts are available after the meeting in every language, as TXT or SRT files. Before you post them or use them, staff can edit the transcript. When the English is corrected, translations are redone from the fix.
The most useful step is "teach the fix". When you correct an error, you can turn that correction into an autocorrect rule or a glossary word. The same mistake is then handled automatically in future meetings, so your captions improve over time instead of repeating errors.
A reminder: transcripts are not official minutes. They can help staff prepare minutes. See transcripts for minutes and records.
A simple routine for your office
- Before your first meeting, build a glossary from your roster, street list and current projects.
- Before each meeting, scan the agenda for new names and add them.
- During the meeting, enter speaker names, add autocorrect rules for repeat mistakes, and pause for recess and closed session. Use the review desk if the meeting calls for it.
- After the meeting, edit the transcript and use "teach the fix" on the errors you correct.
- Now and then, ask a fluent speaker to review the languages that matter most. Translation quality varies by language.
These tools make captions more accurate, but automatic captions can still contain errors, and every screen says so. For a deaf resident who requests CART as an accommodation, your agency should consider that request. See machine captions vs CART.
Learn more
- Features
- How to test live captions with your own meeting recording
- AI captions vs human captioners
- Pricing
- Contact us to try SentraCaptions on a past meeting