Take notes of meetings with Notes

Notes writes down meetings and calls: team meetings, calls with colleagues, talks with suppliers. With MediSync Cloud, Dictate tells the speakers apart. After the end it writes a draft summary. The notes stay encrypted on this computer.

Notes is not meant for the conversation between doctor and patient. MediSync Scribe does that.

What you need

• A MediSync sign-in. Your access must include MediSync Cloud. Without it the page shows Notes uses MediSync Cloud. Your access has no cloud transcription. and Start a note is grey.
• A microphone. For online meetings also system audio, so Dictate hears the others too.

Set up Notes once

The first time you start a note, Set up Notes opens.

Until Notes is set up, the shortcut and the Action Bar only open the Notes page. You find the system audio switch later under Settings›Notes.

Start a note

There are four ways:

• On the Notes page, click Start a note.
• Press Ctrl+Win+M. On a Mac it is Control+Option+M. The same keys stop the note again.
• Move the mouse over the Action Bar and click Start taking notes. When Dictate detects a call, the Action Bar offers this action by itself.
• With a connected calendar, each meeting under Today in your calendar has Start note. If the meeting has a meeting link, Join and start opens the meeting first and then starts the note.

A note gets the title of the calendar meeting that runs now. Without a meeting it is named after the detected service, for example "Teams-Meeting". You change the title at the top of the note.

By default, a note started with the shortcut or the Action Bar opens beside the call. Live notes explains this.

While it records

A note has three tabs:

At the bottom of the note, Pause pauses the recording and Resume goes on. A pause does not count towards the length of the recording.

If an online meeting from your calendar runs without system audio, the note shows System audio is off. The transcript only holds what your microphone hears. Click Turn on.

If no sound comes from the microphone for 3 minutes, the note shows No sound from the microphone for 3 minutes. Check mute.

Every recording has a maximum length. Two minutes before the end, the transcript shows Ends in with the time left. Extend adds 30 minutes. You set the maximum length as described in Live notes and settings.

Stop the recording

Click Stop, or press Ctrl+Win+M. Dictate shows Preparing the summary in two steps. Then the Summary tab opens. If the Dictate window is not in front, Dictate tells you Summary ready.

• If nothing was said and nothing written, Dictate does not keep the note. You see Nothing was said. The empty note was not saved.
• If the recording is shorter than 45 seconds and has fewer than 25 words, Dictate asks A very short recording. Started by mistake? Keep keeps the note, Discard deletes it.

With Resume at the bottom of a finished note you record more into the same note later. The plus sign next to it starts a New note.

Name speakers

In the transcript each section starts with its speaker, for example Speaker 2. With system audio, your own voice shows as You.

The name is used for copying, questions and the next summary. Remove name brings the number back.

Edit or delete a section

Move the mouse over a section of the transcript.

• Edit section opens the text. Change it and click Save. The section gets the mark Edited. A click on the mark brings back the recognised text (Restore original).
• Delete section removes the section. For six seconds the bottom shows Section deleted. with Undo.

Above the transcript, Search the transcript finds words and the arrows jump from match to match. The icon next to it is Copy transcript.

Translate the transcript

Click Translate above the transcript and pick a language: German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian or Arabic. A line under the bar names the language and says A draft, please check it. The translation is a draft. Original shows the recognised text again.

Check the summary

The summary is a draft. Dictate writes above it Draft. Please check it before you pass it on. Read it before you share it.

• Create again writes the summary once more, for example after you named speakers or edited sections. If the transcript changed, Dictate tells you.
• Copy summary puts only the summary on the clipboard.
• If there is no summary, click Create summary.
• Share in Slack sends it to Slack after you checked it. See Connections and Slack.

Ask about the meeting

At the bottom of every note is the field Ask about this meeting. When you click into it, Dictate shows Suggestions and your questions under Asked before. The suggestions are Follow-up e-mail, Tasks and owners, Decisions and Open questions. A question has at most 500 characters.

Dictate answers from the transcript only. Each answer shows Answer from the transcript. A draft, please check it. While it records, Discussed so far sums up the last five minutes.

Copy a note

Copy at the top right puts the whole note on the clipboard: title, date, summary, your notes and the transcript with speakers and times.

Put notes in folders

On the Notes page you switch between All notes and Folders.

A note can be in more than one folder. Remove from folder takes it out. Under Folders, New folder creates a folder with a name and an optional description. The description helps Dictate suggest folders. When you delete a folder, the notes in it stay.

Search and filter notes

Click the magnifier icon Search. Dictate searches titles, transcripts, summaries and your own notes. Two filters narrow the list:

• Time: Any time, Today, Last 7 days or Last 30 days
• Folder: one folder or All folders

If you have no note yet, Open the example note opens a note to try things out.

Delete a note

In the note, click the bin icon Delete at the top right. Then click Delete? once more. This cannot be undone. You cannot delete a note while it records.

You set how long Dictate keeps notes under Settings›Privacy›Keep notes.

Report a problem with a note

We get your description, numbers about the note and a technical report. No audio and no transcript. You must be signed in for this.

Cloud or Local

Speech recognition follows the setting under Settings›General›Processing:

If MediSync Cloud cannot be reached during a recording and MediSync Local is installed, Local writes on. The note then shows No connection to the MediSync server. MediSync Local writes on, on this computer. More in Cloud or Local.

What needs a sign-in

The notes themselves are encrypted on this computer. These features go through MediSync's servers and need a sign-in:

• starting a note
• the summary and Create again
• questions with Ask and Discussed so far
• the translation with Translate
• the report with Report a problem

Signed out, the question field shows Asking needs a MediSync sign-in. If asking is not in your plan, it shows Asking is not part of your plan.

To bring in notes from Granola, Otter or files, see Import notes.