Any note in the app can be spoken instead of typed: the quick note on a business in Sales, a call or a note on its activity, what is worth knowing about it, the note when you check out of a visit on a route, a client's notes and treatment notes, the note on an appointment, the notes of a meeting (on its page, or as you add one), a comment on a task, and the long answers of a treatment form the team writes. Beside each field there is a Dictate button. Say the note, and the app turns what it heard into readable prose, takes out the ums and ahhs, and shows it to you to read through and change before it goes in.
Dictating
- Tap Dictate beside the field. The first time, the browser asks to use the microphone; allow it.
- Say the note. While it listens the button says Listening… and the words show as they are heard. Tap the button again when you are done (it stops on its own after three minutes).
- The words come back tidied: fillers, false starts and repeated words taken out, sentences and paragraphs put in, nothing added and nothing left out. Read them through and change anything.
- Show what was heard opens the words exactly as the microphone heard them, so you can check a name or a number against them.
- Choose Use these words (or Add these words when the field already has text; they go in after it on a new line), or Throw it away. The button says when the words are in; then keep or save the note as you always do.
What was heard is kept beside the note once you use it, so the tidying never loses what was said. The note itself is what you kept.
How it hears
On a phone or a tablet in Safari, Chrome or Edge, the browser hears the words itself, as you speak. In a browser that cannot, or one whose own speech service cannot be reached (Brave, or Chrome without a connection), the app records a short clip instead and reads it on the server through its transcription provider; until one is connected, that browser says so and you can type instead.
The tidying is done by the assistant's model. Without an assistant key on the server, or when the assistant cannot be reached, the app tidies the words itself: the sounds taken out, a word said twice said once, capitals and full stops put in, and it never adds or changes a word. The review says which did it.
Voice Notes on the phone
The phone app has a Voice Notes tool in its Tools folder, for a note said as you walk out of a visit or a meeting, before you know where it goes:
- Tap Say a note. The first time, the app says why it uses the microphone and then the phone asks; allow it. The phone records only while the button is red, three minutes at most.
- Tap it again when you are done. The recording goes to BookNovi to be read and tidied, and is deleted from the phone; nothing of it is kept until you keep the note.
- Read the words through and change anything. Show what was heard has the words as they were heard.
- Under Where It Goes, type a name and pick the client, the business in Sales or your own task it is about. You are offered only what the web app shows you: clients in your book, and Sales and Projects where they are yours.
- Tap Keep it on and the name. The note goes on the client's notes, the business's activity or the task's comments, as if you had typed it there, with what was heard kept beside it.
Your last notes are listed under it, with where each went. In a browser the same page hears the words itself where the browser can.
The phone records at speech quality, which is all a transcription needs, so three minutes stays small enough to send on any connection.
Wispr Flow and the keyboard's own dictation
Wispr Flow, Siri dictation, Gboard's microphone and every other keyboard-level tool type straight into any field in the app; nothing here needs to be switched on for them. Use whichever you like. The Dictate button is for when you want the app to tidy the words and keep what was heard beside the note.
Best practices
- Say names and numbers plainly; check them against Show what was heard before you use the note.
- Keep one note to one thing. A long dictation that changes subject is still readable, but a short note is found again faster.
- On a phone, dictate right after the call or the visit, while it is fresh; the quick note on a business is made for that.