To use Task Magic you will need to create accounts with both Amazon Web Services and Amazon Mechanical Turk. Your account information is used by Task Magic to call directly from Excel to your MTurk account to submit your tasks. It is not stored anywhere outside of your Excel Workbook.

Setting up your AWS and MTurk accounts requires you complete the 4 steps described below. This may seem involved but it should only take about 10 minutes to complete.

Step 1. Create an MTurk Requester account

First, If you haven’t already, register for an MTurk Requester account at requester.mturk.com.

Step 2. Create an AWS account

Next, If you haven’t already, please register for an AWS account at portal.aws.amazon.com.

At the end of registration, it will ask you for a credit card. Note that your MTurk usage will not appear in your AWS bill since you will prepay for your usage on MTurk’s website. However, if you use other services with this AWS account, you may accrue AWS charges.

Step 3. Link your AWS account to your MTurk Requester account

Once you have an MTurk Requester account and an AWS account, link them following the instructions at requester.mturk.com/developer. This will allow MTurk to use the AWS account to identify you and allow access for you to use the MTurk API.

1. Log in to your Requester account on requester.mturk.com/developer. The first step is to create an AWS account which you’ve done.
2. Go down to Step 2, and select Link your AWS Account
   
3. Log into your AWS account if prompted, and confirm the Account ID. You can log in to a different AWS account from this screen if your AWS account uses a different email than your Requester account.
4. Select Link this Account to continue
   

When your accounts are correctly linked, you will see this:

When you scroll down to Step 2, you’ll see your AWS account number and account details. Note: You’ll need to use the AWS account number later so copy it from this screen when you’re done.

Step 4: Create an IAM User for MTurk in your AWS account

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is an AWS feature that enables you to securely control access to AWS services and resources. You will create an IAM User with permissions to call Crowd API tasks, and as a prerequisite the permissions to call the MTurk API. Note this User will not have permission to use other AWS resources in your account unless you specify permissions to do so.

On the AWS IAM website, we will create an IAM User on the AWS IAM website, who will have to correct permissions to call any of the single purpose APIs.

Select Users from the IAM service page, then select Add User

Enter “mturk-crowd-caller” for the name and select Programmatic Access. Then select Next: Permissions. Note: This User name can be customized if you wish.

Select Attach existing policies directly, then from the Policy type Filter search for MechanicalTurk:

Select the checkbox for the AmazonMechanicalTurkFullAccess and AmazonMechanicalTurkCrowdFullAccess, then click Next: Review.

Next, select Create User.

Important: Now, you will see your AWS Access Key ID and Secret Access Key. You will need these later so copy them alongside the account id you copied at the end of the previous step. You won’t be able to see the Secret Access Key again, so don’t close this page. If you need to, you can always generate new keys here following these instructions.

Next, you will store these credentials on your computer. Leave this browser window open until we’ve saved AWS Access Key ID and Secret Access Key as described below.

Your Account is Now Setup

You’ve now completed setup of your account and recorded the Account Id, Access Key and Secret Key you will use to log into Task Magic. Next we’ll add funds to your account.