A call captioning system for captioning a hearing user's (HU's) voice signal during an ongoing call with an assisted user (AU) includes: an AU communication device with a display screen and a caption service activation feature, and a first processor programmed to, during an ongoing call, receive the HU's voice signal. Prior to activating the caption service via the activation feature, the processor uses an automated speech recognition (ASR) engine to generate HU voice signal captions, detect errors in the HU voice signal captions, use the errors to train the ASR software to the HU's voice signal to increase accuracy of the HU captions generated by the ASR engine; and store the trained ASR engine for subsequent use. Upon activating the caption service during the ongoing call, the processor uses the trained ASR engine to generate HU voice signal captions and present them to the AU via the display screen.

Different call managing techniques are described for both voice calls and video calls. A call management system detects that a user is on an active call. The call management system detects that the user has continued to speak when the call was disconnected, as by another user terminating the call or poor network conditions. When the call management system detects a disconnected call, it records the spoken speech into a buffer and determines which portion of the user's speech was not processed and communicated to the other user. The user whose call was terminated is provided with an option to provide the un-communicated speech to the other user. Options can include sending a text version of the un-communicated speech to the other user or sending a voice file to the other user.

The present disclosure provides for merging of instant messaging (IM) chat sessions. In one embodiment, a method for automatically replying to an IM message from a first IM sender when a recipient is engaged in an IM session with a second IM sender is provided. In another embodiment, the disclosure provides a method for forwarding IM messages to a recipient at different IM clients. In still another embodiment, a method for transferring IM messages to a different recipient is provided. In some embodiments, two separate IM chat sessions are merged into a single IM chat session.

Systems and methods provide a resident of a controlled-environment facility with voice messaging. The facility provides the resident with voice communication services. In response to a request by a resident for a voice communication with a non-resident, a call request to the non-resident may be initiated. In certain scenarios, the non-resident is unable to accept the call request. If a voice message is authorized, the resident is allowed to record a voice message for the non-resident. Certain restrictions may limit the resident to selecting from automated voice messages. A notification of the recorded voice message is dispatched to the non-resident. The notification identifies a unique link that directs the non-resident to a voice message retrieval system that allows the resident to retrieve and listen to the voice message recorded by the resident. The voice message recording remains under the control of the controlled-environment facility based on applicable security policies and procedures.

A system and method are presented for voicemail acceleration. A voicemail acceleration system, which functions to accelerate the experience of a user, is associated with at least one user device. A user may initiate an interaction with another user, wherein the device associated with the voicemail acceleration system detects that the interaction is being sent to voicemail through contact analysis. A pre-established message and/or a number of options may be presented to the user initiating the interaction, wherein the user may choose an option or elect to automatically leave a message and end the interaction on their end. The voicemail acceleration system provides the retrieved message to the other user and finishes the interaction.

Methods and systems for modifying/supplementing a message are described. A computing device may receive a message from a user device that is intended for a recipient device. A user of the user device may create a message, such as a voicemail, by interacting with the computing device. The computing device may analyze the message in real-time as the user is interacting with the computing device and send, to the user device, one or more options for modifying/supplementing the message. The user of the user device may select one or more of the options and cause the computing device to modify/supplement the message accordingly.

Enhanced capabilities within a telephone network are made accessible to a telecommunications device. The telecommunications device is used to dial a sequence. A network server receives and identifies the sequence invokes an advanced network function. A advanced network function server in communication with the network server provides instructions as to how the network server is to provide the advanced network function. The network server processes the call in accordance with the received instructions to provide the particular advanced network function.

A method to transcribe communications includes obtaining an audio message from a first device during a voice communication session with a second device including a display screen, providing the message to a first speech recognition system to generate a first message transcript, providing the transcript to the second device for presentation on the screen, obtaining an indication that a transcript quality is below a threshold, providing, in response, the message to a second system to generate a second transcript while still providing it to the first system to generate the first transcript and providing the first transcript to the second device for presentation on the display screen, and in response to an event occurring that indicates the second transcript is to be provided to the second device instead of the first transcript, providing the second transcript to the second device for presentation on the screen instead of the first transcript.

Embodiments for automatically distributing phone call recordings to interested parties generally include associating one or more forwarding criteria with each of one or more interested parties, establishing a phone call from a calling party to a destination number through an institutional phone system, recording the phone call, and, if the phone call satisfies one or more forwarding criteria associated with one or more interested parties, automatically distributing the recording of the phone call to the at least one interested party associated with the satisfied one or more forwarding criteria. Distribution may be by e-mail, by uploading the recording to a website that interested parties (and preferably only interested parties) can access, by queuing the recordings for export to physical media, and/or through a voice mail system. Calls may be selected for distribution based on the caller, the called party, conversation content, call time, or any other suitable criteria.

Systems and methods provide a resident of a controlled-environment facility with a visitation service that include messaging capabilities, where the message are managed on behalf of the resident based on the visitation sessions in which the resident participates. In one scenario, the resident issues an initial visitation request for a visitation session with a particular non-resident. In response to the non-resident not accepting this initial visitation request, the resident is allowed to record and store a message, such as a voice message or video message, for retrieval and playback by the non-resident. At a later time, the resident issues a second visitation request for a visitation session with the same non-resident. The non-resident accepts the second request and the requested visitation session between the non-resident and the resident is conducted. In response to the visitation session being conducted, the stored message may be marked for deletion.