Getting started as a host
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Five steps take you from sign-up to a transcribed conversation: create an account, name your organisation, create a project, share its portal, and read what comes back. Run through it once with a test recording before you put it in front of a room.
Important
A new account starts on the free plan. It includes 5 hours of audio a month, at most 1 hour per conversation, and one project. When the hours run out, recording stops until the 1st of the next month. Everything recorded stays readable. If your session needs more, arrange the plan first. See tiers, billing and usage.
1. Create your account#
- On the dembrane login page, choose “Create an account”.
- “Your details”: enter your “First name” and “Email address” and tick “I have read and accept the terms”. “Last name” is optional.
- “Create password”: at least 8 characters, with an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, a number and a symbol.
- “Verify email”: the screen says “Check your email”. Open the email and click the link. If nothing arrives, press “Resend verification email”.
- Log in with your email and password.
Your password does not work until the email address is verified.
Note
Invited to an organisation that already uses dembrane? Register with the address the invitation was sent to. You then skip step 2 and join that organisation. With any other address you start a new organisation of your own.
2. Name your organisation#
The first time you log in, dembrane shows three short screens.
- “Organisation”: type an “Organisation name” and press “Get started”. You can change the name later.
- “Invite”: enter your colleagues’ email addresses and press “Send invites”, or press “Skip”. The people you invite here are invited to your workspace as members.
- “About you”: two or three questions about how you plan to use dembrane. Answer them or press “Skip”.
You now have an organisation with one workspace in it, called “Default”, on the free plan. You own both. The dashboard shows that role as “Admin”. Projects live in a workspace, and no project exists yet: you make one in the next step. More on the two levels in organisations and workspaces.
3. Create a project#
- You land on the home screen, which greets you and asks “Where would you like to go?”. Pick your workspace, “Default”, from the list.
- The empty workspace says “Let’s hear your first conversation.” Press “Create project”.
- Go through the four steps. Only the name is required.
- “Name”: a “Project name” for your own use, and a few sentences of “Project context” about the topic and what you want to learn.
- “Key terms”: the names, places and jargon you expect to hear, so transcription spells them correctly.
- “Access”: leave it on “Open to the workspace”.
- “Review”: press “Create project”.
You land on the project’s “Overview” page. Creating a project explains each step.
A new project takes its language from your dashboard: Dutch when you use the dashboard in Dutch, English in every other case. If people will speak another language, change “Language” in the portal editor before you share the link.
4. Share the portal#
The portal is the web page people record on. They need no account and no app. A new project accepts recordings straight away, so there is nothing to switch on.
On “Overview”, the “Take part” card shows the project’s QR code with four buttons:
- “Copy link”: paste the link into a message or an email.
- “Open link”: open the portal yourself.
- “Download QR code”: a picture of the code for a slide.
- “Download event printouts”: a printable sheet with instructions and the code.
Now make a test recording. Scan the code with your phone and press “I understand” on the privacy card. Enter a “Session name”, press “Continue”, then “Record”. Talk for a minute. Press “Stop”, then “Finish”.
Before a real session, read the short checklist for participants in collecting conversations.
5. Read what comes back#
Go back to “Overview”. Your recording is in the “Conversations” list with a status.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| “Empty” | No audio has arrived yet. Normal in the first half minute. |
| “Live” | Audio arrived in the last 30 seconds. |
| “Transcribing” | dembrane is still working on it. |
| “Done” | Ready to read. |
Open the conversation. “Summary” is at the top and “Transcript” below it, with one block for each piece of audio. The portal sends audio in pieces of 30 seconds and each piece is transcribed as it arrives, so the transcript grows while people are still talking. The summary is written once the conversation is finished.
A name came out wrong? Add it as a key term and transcribe again. See troubleshooting transcripts and summaries.
Then make sense of it#
- “Ask” in the sidebar opens a chat about your conversations. Press “Select conversations”, type a question and press “Send”. The free plan includes two chats a month, with 20 questions each. See chat and Ask.
- “Report” in the sidebar writes an article from the project’s conversations. Press “Generate now”. The free plan includes one report a month. See reports.
- “Present” prepares a screen for the room, and “Map” lays out the arguments people made. Both are Beta. See present and map.
Summaries, answers and reports are written by a language model. They point you to what is worth reading. The judgement stays yours.
Related#
- Creating a project: the four steps and what a new project starts with.
- Setting up the portal: what participants see.
- Collecting conversations: sharing, the checklist for participants, uploading audio.
- Transcripts & conversations: reading and tidying what you collected.
- Tiers, billing and usage: what the free plan includes.
- For hosts: every page of the host guide.
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