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# Enable Live Transcription in MS Teams Meetings
- URL: https://nolongerset.com/enable-live-transcription-in-ms-teams/
- Published: 2021-04-21T03:48:41.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-08T13:05:09.000Z
- Description: Is the "Start transcription" option missing from your Teams menu? Is the "Join" button missing from your calendar entry? Maybe I can help (but probably not).
- Author: Mike Wolfe
- Tags: Tools, #Import 2026-05-20 02:59

I've been using the [live transcription](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/view-live-transcription-in-a-teams-meeting-dc1a8f23-2e20-4684-885e-2152e06a4a8b?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US) feature in my daily update meeting with my one remote employee. The feature works pretty well, though there are a couple things I find annoying:

- I can't set it to start automatically at the beginning of each meeting
- There doesn't seem to be a way to search more than one transcript at a time

### Sometimes it's available; sometimes it's not

As I said, I use the feature in my daily meetings. But every time I tried setting up a one-off meeting, the feature wasn't available.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-93.png)

Sometimes the option was there, sometimes it wasn't.

## Check Permissions/Policies

The first thing I did was make sure it wasn't a permissions issue. I went to the [Meetings Policies](https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/policies/meetings) tab in our [Teams Admin Center](https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/dashboard). Then I clicked on the **Global (Org-wide default)** policy. (The other five policies I blurred out in my screenshot are all built-in policies that have been deprecated; I have not built any custom policies yet.)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-94.png)

Teams Admin Center > Meetings > Meeting policies > Manage policies > Global (Org-wide default)

I verified that "Allow transcription" was set to On. I had done this weeks earlier, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to transcribe my daily meetings. Still, when something weird like this happens, I always check permissions first.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-96.png)

"**Allow transcription**" is enabled in the Global policy. Permissions look good.

Then, because I'm paranoid, I checked to make sure that I did not have some custom policy assigned to my user account. Everything looks good here:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-97.png)

Users > {Click on user name} > Policies > Verify **Meeting policy** is correct

## RTFM

Finally, I decided to (re-)read the fine manual (that's what that acronym means, right?). Microsoft 365 changes constantly, so the documentation barely keeps up. 

Following the [link](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/view-live-transcription-in-a-teams-meeting-dc1a8f23-2e20-4684-885e-2152e06a4a8b?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US) I posted earlier, I arrived at this nugget of information:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-98.png)

Ah, I see. Wait, what's the difference among these three meeting types?

It turns out that the live transcription feature is only available for "scheduled meetings" and not "channel meetings" or "**Meet now** meetings." Which raises the obvious question, "What's the difference?"

After much [DuckDuckGo](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=ms+teams+scheduled+meeting+vs+meet+now&ia=web)\-ing, I gave up. I could not find any sort of authoritative answer as to what constitutes a "scheduled meeting" vs. a "meet now meeting."

So now I was stuck resorting to trial and error.

## What's a "Scheduled Meeting?"

The answer seemed straightforward based on the user interface in Teams:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-99.png)

The button on the left starts a "Meet now" meeting, which must mean the one on the right lets us create a "scheduled meeting."

There's a button that says right on it, "Meet now." That *has* to be the "Meet now" meeting of which the website spake. Alas, 'twas more to the story.

I clicked the button to schedule a "+ New meeting." I added a Title to the meeting, set the date and time for tomorrow at noon, and left the recurrence setting to "Does not repeat." I saved and closed the meeting.

I then clicked on the event on the Calendar in Teams. I clicked \[Join\] in the pop-up box. To test the functionality, I joined the meeting then clicked on the three dots to pull down the menu. "Start transcription" was not an option. I clicked \[Leave\] to leave the meeting.

I went back to the event on the Calendar and clicked Edit. I changed the recurrence option from "Does not repeat" to "Custom." I then set a "Custom recurrence" schedule to repeat every **1 day**, but with an End date that matched the Start date.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-100.png)

Behold, a single occurence "series" of meetings.

I saved the Custom recurrence and then saved the meeting details. I clicked \[Join\] on the meeting entry on the calendar, joined the meeting, then clicked the three dots to pull down the menu. Wouldn't you know it, "Start transcription" appeared as an option.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-101.png)

## The Wrong Solution? The Wrong Problem?

Thrilled that I finally figured out what was wrong, I decided to write an article about the ordeal to help the next poor soul. The only problem? I couldn't reliably reproduce the problem. At least, not the same way.

After having written most of the article from memory, I went back to recreate the exact sequence of steps that led to the problem. But, no matter what I did, I always seemed to have the option to "Start transcription" now. 

Man, as a developer, there's not much worse than a problem that you can't reproduce.

### My theory

If I had to guess, I would guess that the problem was a temporary network issue. Perhaps Microsoft's policy server was overloaded. Every time Teams sent a request to see if I had permission to initiate the transcription, it failed to receive a response and so had no choice but to deny my access to the feature. In this theory, changing the recurrence type from "Does not repeat" to "Custom" was a red herring. That was simply the last action I performed before the network issue resolved itself.

### A different problem

In trying to reproduce the original problem, I seemed to have stumbled upon a different problem. I created a meeting using the "+ Add meeting" button, but I did not add any other attendees.

When I clicked on the event there was no Join button, only an Edit button:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-102.png)

Where is the **Join** button?

It would seem that the Join button does not appear until you add at least one attendee to the meeting. It can be a required attendee or an optional one; that does not seem to matter. I clicked the Edit button above and added a single Optional attendee. I then clicked \[Send update\] in the upper-right to save my changes:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-103.png)

Now when I click on the meeting entry, I have the option to Join the meeting (even though it does not start for more than 12 hours):

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/eb/d7/ebd732c1-5f03-4f07-b386-5d08557e15c9/content/images/2021/04/image-104.png)

To make things even more interesting, I can now go back and \[Edit\] the meeting and *remove* the only attendee. When I click Send update and return back to the meeting entry, I still have the option to Join the meeting.

So, to recap:

- Create a meeting with no attendees: \[Join\] button is **missing**
- Add a single attendee: \[Join\] button **shows**
- Remove the one attendee: \[Join\] button still **shows**

## Future Readers

Having spent way more time on this article than I ever intended to, Microsoft is almost certain to change the functionality of Teams meetings and transcription options so that everything I just wrote is no longer applicable. Your mileage may vary. (Mine sucked.)