Thread: GUIDE: TSM 2.0 - Groups/Operations

Now that that's out of the way - let's get down to business. This guide will cover the new group/sub-group/operation relationships you will find in TSM 2.0. We'll start with a little theory, and then we'll follow up with some practical "live" examples.


Why Groups? (and what's changed)
Groups have always been one of the primary features of TSM - offering goblins a way to sort and categorize their wares into collections of items, rather than having to deal with every single item on an individual basis. Groups help to save time, effort, and resources in order to help maximize your AH business. In a nutshell, groups are amazing.

Now that we've set the stage here's the kicker: TSM 2.0 Groups are even better!

More flexible, more powerful, and more profitable. Yes, the downside here is that this also comes with a little bit more overhead in terms of setup - but that's what this guide is for, right?

Let's quickly highlight some of the key differences between TSM 1 and TSM 2.0.

With TSM 1 - groups were primarily an Auctioning feature. A means of creating collections of items with similar posting/cancelling/resetting specifications. Crafting settings were handled on a profession level. Mailing had it's own set of settings, and shopping/dealfinding lists were their own thing as well.

With TSM 2.0 - groups and settings are united, via Operations, and while it might take some getting used to, it's a welcome change, and one that we'll be better off because of it. Groups have now been streamlined, and really only should be thought of as a means of grouping items. Operations are the settings that actually get things done. The real power of TSM 2.0 is the ability to combine the 2 pretty much unilaterally.

Groups vs. Operations
New to TSM 2.0, and replacing many of the old settings process are Operations. Every major facet of TSM will allow you to create operations (Auctioning, Crafting, Shopping, Mailing, Warehousing). The purpose of groups, is now ENTIRELY in sorting/categorizing items. It's very important to understand this distinction, because it opens up a whole world of possibilities, when you start to consider how many different ways you can sort a group of items, and how many different things you can do with them, and then realize how many more opportunities open up when you combine the two.

This is the new relationship between Groups and Operations. Now let's figure out how to get them working together and do so as efficiently as possible.

How to use Groups
Your first thought may be to simply import your old TSM groups. The TSM 2.0 download page recommends AGAINST this, and I'm going to strongly agree. Your second thought may be to dive in and start creating a whole bunch of groups and operations. Resist that urge, finish this guide and then move forward with a plan, instead.

Long gone are the days when your TSM groups had to configure ALL their settings before they resembled anything functional. TSM 2.0 is lean and powerful at the same time. Each of your groups/sub-groups can be assigned as few or as many operations as you like. With this in mind, it's essential to first consider EVERYTHING you'd potentially like to do with each group of items, and how you'd like to do it before you get too far. The ability to cascade various operations throughout an intricate group configuration might potentially save you hours of processing time down the road.

One of the primary distinctions between Groups and Operations (IMO) is this: Operations are easy and well-suited to being micro-managed and tweaked when necessary. Groups are not. This is why I believe it's so key to plan and prepare your group setup from Day 1. If you have the right Groups, then swapping in 3 or 4 completely different Operations until you find the one that works the best is a breeze. Recreating Groups will be a chore - one that I, personally intend on avoiding wherever possible.

Consider this: Let's say you wanted to split a group of items into 2 sub-groups for mailing, then 3 different sub-groups for posting, and maybe even another 2-3 groups for crafting so that you can control which quantities were being restocked. Without a proper plan, you can end up with a powerful, yet impossible to manage setup that you'll either be stuck with or facing the daunting task of recreating those groups from scratch. If done properly, on the other hand, you can walk away with a lean, flexible, yet extremely powerful collection. I bet you've never seen someone get so worked up over Groups before, have you?

Here's my 3 Step approach to creating effective and functional Groups and Operations.

1) Pick your market and then write down/brainstorm every single thing you'd like to do in that market and how you'd like to do it. Who will you be mailing the items to and which items? How would you like to store them? Will you be restocking different items in different quantities? Will you be posting items in different amounts, or at different prices? Every single operation and possible breakdown of grouping should be considered - again, it's probably going to be a lot easier to accommodate extra groups in the beginning than it will be to fit more in down the road.

2) Find opportunities to streamline and consolidate. Are there operations that will remain consistent between multiple group configurations? Plan out your group hierarchy to avoid redundancy and to suit your needs. IE - If you have a set of 3 groups and then 2 sub-groups and then 1 further sub-group, you'll need to actually create 15 total groups, but if you were to rearrange them to be one group, with 2 sub-groups, and then 3 further sub-groups, you'd only have 9 groups to handle. With Operations handling all the actual work, you'll probably notice the exact same performance with nearly half the upkeep.

3) Expect the unexpected, and try to plan ahead. Don't just think of how you'll be doing things now, try to figure out how you'll be doing things moving forward and build the infrastructure to support it. In the example I listed above, I showed how it might be most efficient to arrange your groups from smallest to largest, in order to reduce the total number of groups you'll need, but if those set of 3 groups are ones that you'll need to be readjusting often (changing operations and such), if you have them at the primary level, that's only 3 sets of settings to change instead of 6. The deeper your pyramid, the more work it will be to manage the bottom level, so definitely consider maintenance and long-term goals when you decide how to arrange things.

Alright - that's enough with this theoretical stuff, let's get to an example. For this, we'll turn to where else, but glyphs.

Scenario 1 - Glyphs

For Step 1, let's go through each of the different Operation Modules and see how many different ways we'd like to sort our glyph business.

Mailing
This is a good module to start with because it's usually the easiest. Most of the time, you'll be sending wares to 1 or maybe 2 toons. The most common operation here would be mailing finished products to your posting toon. Some people might use 2 posting toons, or in some markets, you might send goods off separately to be processed by different professions (gems to be transmuted, for example). In this case, however, we'll keep it relatively simple and use 1 posting toon, so let's note that for our first operation.

- Send glyphs to posting toon (ALL). We'll only need a single group to cover this.

Warehousing
Another relatively straightforward module. Glyphs are a great market to make use of TSM warehousing, though - since there's so much inventory to manage. I personally have still been using the Glyphinator Addon to manage all my glyphs on a single toon (I'm a creature of habit and have really become reliant on those macros ), but I'm sure that TSM warehousing can fill the need here as well. In order to accommodate ALL glyphs on one toon, I've got them split into 3 nearly equal groups here. The grouping for this is essentially random, but if you end up with 3 nearly equal groups somewhere else, you might as well consolidate.

- Grab glyphs in 3 equal batches from bank. We'll need 3 groups for this.

Auctioning
Chances are, this will be where you'll end up finding the majority of your group diversity, especially in a market like glyphs. There are a lof of pretty obvious groups in this market, naturally. Ink type, source (trainer, research, etc.), so let's try and think about some of the less obvious ones. Maybe you split this group by class, or by high vs. low sellers - it really depends on how you'd like to MANAGE the groups afterward. A sub-group for high selling glyphs might not seem like a big deal at first, but think about some of the more advanced group structures we've proposed and having to add/configure that sub-group underneath 5-6 other sub-groups, or even worse - having to reconfigure 8-10 sub-groups underneath it, if you'd like it to be higher up the chain. If you plan ahead for some of these potential re-configurations, you'll save yourself a LOT of time and frustration down the road. Even things like a patch day/week group, or new glyphs group - consider them, and if you think there's even a remote chance that you'd like to micro-manage your settings on that level at some point, add them to your list - we'll be trimming it down anyway. So, let's take a look at our auctioning list:

- Source. We'll need 5 groups for this (Trainer, Minor Research, Northrend Research, Book of Glyph Mastery, Scroll of Wisdom)
- Ink type. We'll need 9 groups for this (Midnight, Lion's, Jadefire, Celestial, Shimmering, Ethereal, Ink of the Sea, Blackfallow, Ink of Dreams)
- Sell rate. Let's just split this in half for now. High selling, and low-selling.
- Patch day. We'll assume that this group will be used to unilaterally adjust prices on all our groups, so we'll only need one here.
- New gylphs vs. old/current glyphs. 2 groups here.

You could also add a tier for class-breakdown, but I'm not going to list it here because that would involve 11 additional sub-groups and is overkill, IMO. If your setup benefits from it, by all means - include it in your's though.

Crafting
This is where things are potentially going to start to get redundant, but I'll concede that it MAY be due to the market we've chosen for our example, so let's walk through the process nonetheless. Whereas, with Auctioning, we examined how many different ways we'd like to PRICE/SELL our glyphs, crafting is about how we'd like to RESTOCK our glyphs - how many total we'll want on hand, how many we'll restock at a time, etc. We'll probably want to consider Source and Ink type again, and high vs. low selling also makes sense - especially if you don't carry a large ink stockpile or don't have the ability to process large batches of herbs on a session by session basis. In that case, you'll want to ensure that your best glyphs get restocked first, but you might want to tweak how many to ensure you can at least get one round of the others. I'd also ensure that you have at least 1 singleton group for restocking, just in case you ever want to make some changes across the board (ie. setting up a base inventory, or stockpiling for a big xpac /event). So, let's see what we've got:

- Source. 5 Groups
- Ink type. 9 Groups
- High/low selling. 2 Groups
- ALL gylphs. 1 Group

Shopping
This is going to likely be the area that divides most of your AH groups, since you'll probably this module as an either/or scenario with crafting. It's not usually as common to be both crafting AND purchasing the same items, but our Glyph example again offers a nice opportunity to theorize, so let's not waste it. If we were to purchase any glyphs, we'd probably be doing it to either circumvent our crafting/restocking process (which would probably utilize the same groups) or if we're looking to reset cheap auctions for a profit. With the resetting, we'd probably go with our big 3 here - Source, Ink type, and High/Low selling, so let's throw those onto the list.

- Source. 5 Groups
- Ink type. 9 Groups
- High/low selling. 2 Groups
- ALL gylphs. 1 Group

TOTAL NUMBER OF GROUPS PROPOSED: 57 unique groups across 15 different sorting categories. If we were to simply implement this without trimming anything back, even with the most optimized configuration possible, we'd probably need to create SEVERAL HUNDRED sub-groups in order for this to work properly. If you're feeling overwhelmed about the prospect of configuring and (perhaps even worse) maintaining the sheer volume of that many groups I can't blame you. And, if not for this guide, you'd probably either go with a far simpler, far less powerful setup simply to preserve your own sanity, OR, you'd opt out of TSM 2.0 altogether. Instead, let's embrace the chaos and move on to Step 2 - Streamlining and Consolidation. (My personal favourite )

First, we'll want to take a look at redundancies between the various modules and find ways where we will be able to stack operations on a specific set of sub-groups. One of the really powerful aspects of TSM 2.0 is that it really facilitates operation stacking/sharing. Because each of the operations are a separate entity, and because each group can have as few or as many operations as you like, watch how we whittle down hundreds of sub-groups to something far more manageable, and yet equally powerful. AKA. the "magic".

The obvious candidates will be ones that are seemingly identical. While this may seem like an obvious step, in order to preserve as much functionality as possible, you'll want to consider whether sharing operations from different modules within a set of sub-groups is REALLY the most effective solution for you. If we look at our list above, we can see that we've got a few sets of groups that pop up in several areas, notably - Source, Ink Type and High/Low Sellers. So, let's consider - are there any scenarios where these groups might not be able Shopping, Crafting and Auctioning settings? In our case, (and most cases, TBH), probably not. The distinctions will likely be made between the actual sub-groups themselves, and not between the sorting categories. IE. Let's say you want to adjust the fallback price on Trainer glyphs - even if the Trainer group holds Crafting, Auctioning and Shopping operations, we only need to tweak the Auctioning operation to achieve the desired outcome.

The other major opportunity for consolidation would be with the singleton groups. IF POSSIBLE, it can potentially save upkeep time to combine them into a single group, and then just tweak the operations. The singleton sub-groups that we've identified for our Glyph setup are 1 for mailing, 1 auctioning for patch day/event settings, 1 for mass-crafting/inventory buildup, and 1 for shopping. So, can these be combined without loss of performance? Well, the crafting, mailing, and shoppiing ones are probably fine to fall under the same group, but I'd personally keep the patch day group separate. Big events are hectic enough on their own, so you don't really want to have to worry about finding all of your TSM settings when there's profit to be made, right? If we leave this one as its own separate group, we can setup and adjust our patch day settings as effortlessly as possible, which will give you a leg up on your competition.

So, where has Step 2 left us? NEW TOTAL NUMBER OF GROUPS: 23 groups across 7 sorting categories. We've effectively cut our setup in half, and due to the exponential nature of having to properly cascade groups in order to retain functionality, we've reduced our total overhead by even more than that. I told you this step was magical!

The last thing we want to do before venturing over to our friendly neighbourhood auctioneer is to plan ahead and anticipate potential changes or pitfalls. We've already made some allowance here, with our New/Current glyphs sub-group. Remember earlier, when we talked about how you'd need to replicate the sub-groups down throughout each level of sub-group to ensure that we didn't lose functionality? Well, this would be one exception to that rule of thumb. Our "New Glyphs" group is essentially going to serve as a temporary group. For most of the time, it will actually remain empty, so there's no real reason to bother putting anything else beneath it, but we also don't want to leave it at the bottom level, since we'll need to make multiple changes whenever new glyphs are introduced. So, we'll put it up towards the top, but we'll also not bother branching any sub-groups off of it. If new glyphs are put into the game, we'll throw them into this New group, adjust any settings we need to , and then when the "hype" dies down, we can move them into the other branch ("Current Glyphs" and distribute them into any applicable sub-groups from there (Ink type, Source, etc.). These temporary groups are another great candidate for consolidation - just make sure that you won't need a temporary group to serve 2 purposes at the same time, though. Or, if you do, remember to keep them high enough up in the sub-group hierarchy that it won't take much work to add another branch.

We also want to consider "group coverage". Have we covered every LIKELY scenario with our master list? A good example would be if we had omitted our Ink type sorting because we don't think we'd ever use it. That's fine, but what would happen if Blizzard decided to rework the ink requirements for a whole bunch or even ALL of the glyphs? This is something that could potentially impact demand and pricing across the board. If we don't have the sub-groups in place, that's probably going to be as much work as it seems. If we do, however, we simply need to move the items around for the sub-groups on our Ink type level, which is nearly pain-free, all things considered.

Finally, we need to think about how we're going to MAINTAIN and/or micromanage our sub-groups. There's not much sense in having something occupy the bottom level of our hierarchy and have it repeat itself across levels above it if we're going to end up tweaking it the most. We could potentially be making changes in 5 or 6 places if we're not smart about this. Singleton groups and temporary groups (like our "New Glyphs") are fine to go at the top, since they won't have any repetition below them, but when we look at our multi-layered hierarchy, we need to try and guess which operations we'll be using the most and move them up as high as is feasible. Traditionally, warehousing and mailing groups will probably change the least, so those are probably safe to occupy the bottom levels. With glyphs, I'm also not expecting to make too many shopping changes, and my auctioning operations will probably change more frequently than my crafting ones, so I'm going to optimize for Auctioning > Crafting > Shopping > Mailing > Warehousing.

So, there are our groups. The only thing left to do is to take a look at our final product:



NOTE: (I've omitted those 3 Warehousing groups to keep the image from overwhelming the page. I also think that they'd be optional, since I'm relatively certain you would be able to split one of the other categories into 3 fairly even parts to serve the same purpose.)

Now, it MAY seem like overkill to you to have 150 individual groups just for a single market, and you MAY also think I'm crazy for duplicating those Ink Type groups 5 times over, and the High/Low groups 45 times over, but here's where the true power of TSM 2.0 comes into play, IMO. Let's say for example, that something changes in the game that causes Ethereal Ink glyphs to double or triple in value - maybe some bug or change that prevents Outlands herbs from being farmed easily, or the ink trader from functioning - who cares. If you've only got a few groups setup, you'll probably have to create a whole new sub-group for those glyphs, and you'll either need it to be a top-level one and readjust everything underneath, or you'll need to go recreate it a few times anyway to ensure you catch all of your current sub-groups. On top of that, you'll either need to modify existing Operations, or you'll need to create a whole, new set. With a setup as we've worked through above, all you'll need to do is adjust the Auctioning Operation that's associated with the Ethereal Ink groups. If you only want to target Ethereal Ink glyphs learned via Book of Glyph Mastery, then you can create a new operation to override that SPECIFIC group's settings (under Books > Ethereal Ink). Never recreating or reorganizing any groups, simply tweaking and fine tuning your settings.

In the past, it has been both cumbersome and counter-productive in most cases to send too much time micro-managing large amounts of inventory in this way. With TSM 2.0, it is both trivial and (I'm willing to bet) profitable.

NOTE: If you'd like a more visual representation of setting up the groups in-game, check out this post: GUIDE: TSM 2.0 - Groups/Operations

Since I'm an EXTREMELY nice guy, and you've been good enough to read through this entire guide, I thought I'd also go ahead and save you the trouble of tracking down all those item ID's as well. Here are import strings for each of the major groups listed in the guide.

TSM GROUPS
ALL GLYPHS

Code:

42972,42955,42909,42736,44955,42897,41098,41103,42737,43416,42898,42471,41542,42746,41099,43827,43541,42961,42956,42903,42904,42415,41096,41108,41092,43413,40924,
42960,42738,42908,42962,42398,42473,42458,42399,42963,41104,41530,41531,43551,42905,40896,42741,43418,42964,42966,43423,42453,41533,40914,42461,42462,43414,43427,
43424,42406,42401,41095,42744,42745,42906,43536,43546,41106,42465,42402,42400,41540,42735,42749,40897,42900,43549,42907,42743,40922,42910,43826,43422,42911,43548,
43553,42752,40903,42408,40902,42410,41527,42397,43432,40909,41094,40913,42411,43417,42970,40923,42412,42467,43543,42973,40901,42455,42416,42466,42470,41539,42974,
43552,43428,42912,41536,41537,40916,40919,41535,41102,43825,43554,41541,41532,41105,50045,50077,63481,41547,44928,45622,45760,45768,45775,45776,45804,48720,64493,
67482,67483,67484,67485,67486,67487,68793,79513,85683,85695,85696,85697,85699,85700,87393,87880,87881,87882,87888,87891,87892,87893,87894,87895,87896,87897,87898,
87899,87900,87901,87902,43316,43364,43355,43381,43396,43331,43379,43371,43335,43359,43365,43392,43374,43674,43673,43539,43376,43390,43393,43391,43385,43369,43351,
43367,43725,43332,43398,43344,43544,43350,43370,43397,43400,43395,43671,43377,43343,43380,43372,44920,43672,43338,43378,43368,43373,43342,43394,40906,44922,43362,
43334,43535,43360,43340,43361,43339,43386,49084,44923,43388,43389,43399,43366,41100,43356,45794,63416,68039,77101,42914,43533,43550,42957,41110,43419,43412,41526,
41518,41552,43537,42969,42396,42739,42454,42958,42751,42464,43868,43542,42460,43867,42965,42901,42902,43547,42459,41529,41101,44684,41538,41534,43415,42967,40920,
42753,43869,42407,40908,42748,42971,40915,41109,42403,42899,42404,42915,42414,43421,42457,42417,42405,42959,40912,43430,42954,43425,40921,42968,42913,42917,40899,
42754,42409,41524,40906,42463,41097,41107,40900,43534,42472,41517,42456,43431,63539,66918,69773,71155,45732,45623,45741,45781,45625,45769,45789,45799,45757,45800,
45766,45792,45740,45780,45782,45753,45745,45743,45771,45793,45742,45777,45746,45738,45747,45762,45755,45785,45733,45603,45758,45739,45735,45756,45772,45734,45783,
45797,45737,45779,45795,45604,45764,45601,45744,45770,45778,45806,45731,45767,45761,45736,45790,45602,63420,85684,90715,80586,85685,80588,85687,86541,80587,87278,
85689,82345,93202,85691,87276,87883,83096,87884,85692,87279,83107,80585,87885,79514,87392,85698,87887,81956,85221,89868,80584,79538,87277,84652,79515,87889,87890,
80581,104046,104047,104048,104049,104050,104051,104052,104053,104054,104055,104056,104099,104101,104102,104103,104104,104105,104106,104107,104108,104109,104120,104121,104122,104123,104124,104126,104127,104128,104129,104130,104131,104133,104134,104135,104136,104137,104138,104270,104274,104276,104278

Trainer Glyphs

Code:

42972,42955,42909,42736,44955,42897,41098,41103,42737,43416,42898,42471,41542,42746,41099,43827,43541,42961,42956,42903,42904,42415,41096,41108,41092,43413,40924,
42960,42738,42908,42962,42398,42473,42458,42399,42963,41104,41530,41531,43551,42905,40896,42741,43418,42964,42966,43423,42453,41533,40914,42461,42462,43414,43427,
43424,42406,42401,41095,42744,42745,42906,43536,43546,41106,42465,42402,42400,41540,42735,42749,40897,42900,43549,42907,42743,40922,42910,43826,43422,42911,43548,
43553,42752,40903,42408,40902,42410,41527,42397,43432,40909,41094,40913,42411,43417,42970,40923,42412,42467,43543,42973,40901,42455,42416,42466,42470,41539,42974,
43552,43428,42912,41536,41537,40916,40919,41535,41102,43825,43554,41541,41532,41105,50045,50077,63481,41547,44928,45622,45760,45768,45775,45776,45804,48720,64493,
67482,67483,67484,67485,67486,67487,68793,79513,85683,85695,85696,85697,85699,85700,87393,87880,87881,87882,87888,87891,87892,87893,87894,87895,87896,87897,87898,
87899,87900,87901,87902

Minor Research

Code:

43316,43364,43355,43381,43396,43331,43379,43371,43335,43359,43365,43392,43374,43674,43673,43539,43376,43390,43393,43391,43385,43369,43351,43367,43725,43332,43398,
43344,43544,43350,43370,43397,43400,43395,43671,43377,43343,43380,43372,44920,43672,43338,43378,43368,43373,43342,43394,40906,44922,43362,43334,43535,43360,43340,
43361,43339,43386,49084,44923,43388,43389,43399,43366,41100,43356,45794,63416,68039,77101

Northrend Research

Code:

42914,43533,43550,42957,41110,43419,43412,41526,41518,41552,43537,42969,42396,42739,42454,42958,42751,42464,43868,43542,42460,43867,42965,42901,42902,43547,42459,
41529,41101,44684,41538,41534,43415,42967,40920,42753,43869,42407,40908,42748,42971,40915,41109,42403,42899,42404,42915,42414,43421,42457,42417,42405,42959,40912,
43430,42954,43425,40921,42968,42913,42917,40899,42754,42409,41524,40906,42463,41097,41107,40900,43534,42472,41517,42456,43431,63539,66918,69773,71155

Book of Glyph Mastery

Code:

45732,45623,45741,45781,45625,45769,45789,45799,45757,45800,45766,45792,45740,45780,45782,45753,45745,45743,45771,45793,45742,45777,45746,45738,45747,45762,45755,
45785,45733,45603,45758,45739,45735,45756,45772,45734,45783,45797,45737,45779,45795,45604,45764,45601,45744,45770,45778,45806,45731,45767,45761,45736,45790,45602,
63420

Scroll of Wisdom

Code:

85684,90715,80586,85685,80588,85687,86541,80587,87278,85689,82345,93202,85691,87276,87883,83096,87884,85692,87279,83107,80585,87885,79514,87392,85698,87887,81956,
85221,89868,80584,79538,87277,84652,79515,87889,87890,80581

Technique

Code:

104046,104047,104048,104049,104050,104051,104052,104053,104054,104055,104056,104099,104101,104102,104103,104104,104105,104106,104107,104108,104109,104120,104121,104122,104123,104124,104126,104127,104128,104129,104130,104131,104133,104134,104135,104136,104137,104138,104270,104274,104276,104278

Celestial Ink

Code:

87880,45740,45746,42397,43414,41098,42904,45623,42744,43355,42973,40916,41533,42466,43378,42470,41099,40902,41535,42903,42416,42972,79513

Ink of Dreams

Code:

85684,85685,85691,87276,79538,87392,80585,87890,80581,86541,80588,81956,84652,80587,80586,85692,87889,82345,87884,83107,87277,80584,85698,87885,79515,87883,87279,
83096,85687,87278,79514,87887,85221,85689,104046,104047,104048,104049,104050,104051,104052,104053,104054,104055,104056,104099,104101,104102,104103,104104,104105,104106,104107,104108,104109,104120,104121,104122,104123,104124,104126,104127,104128,104129,104130,104131,104133,104134,104135,104136,104137,104138,104270,104274,104276,104278

Shimmering Ink

Code:

42905,67482,43541,42974,45768,45776,40901,45804,45760,43536,43546,45622,45775,42399,41541,87902,41103,43543,43416,87893,50045,68793

Midnight Ink

Code:

42408,43332,48720,43361,43342,40913,45778,40922,43397,43379,42462,43335,41531,42410,43371,43366,43395,43418,43399,43367,41537,43343,41095,42455,42912,43359,43340,
42960,43339,43350,40897,43364,43390,43413,42743,42907,43338,42956,43356,43362,43396,45785,41096,45735,42741

Ink of the Sea

Code:

42404,41518,45604,41102,44928,43412,42959,85696,42748,43430,42957,87899,43542,42967,45757,42914,43533,42407,42463,40920,45777,42909,42414,85700,41517,42954,85683,
42464,87901,42456,41539,45783,87897,85699,43868,41110,87881,43425,45767,42902,42459,41538,71155,44684,42754,42917,45782,42412,42739,40899,42971,43419,42405,42968,
42965,41109,49084,42457,45793,41529,66918,44923,43550,45732,42409,45744,41526,41101,87882,41552,45739,43547,43867,40912,45603,42751,42913,43421,87900,41097,43869,
42417,43552,42396,40908,43374,40906,45766,43394,42901,42958,41534,40915,87898,43534,87896,87892,41107,43537,85695,44920,42472,42745,45794,63539,87888,85697,42915,
69773,43431,40921,42454,40900,41524,50077,44922,42752,42969,42460,42899,43415,42403,45745,42753,90715

Jadefire Ink

Code:

63416,40919,43351,42897,40909,43422,43372,41104,42411,68039,41540,43334,43674,43369,43388,43392,42746,42966,43385,43393,41100,42473,41547,42910,43381,42415,43424,
42738,45733,67483,64493,42467,43370,42970,67486,87891,89868

Lion's Ink

Code:

42898,43398,45747,42961,41532,45734,43365,42461,40924,42908,43725,41106,67485,40914,87393,43417,42398,43391,43368,42735,67487,40923,43389,43386,42962,43373,42900,
45789,41108,42737,43376,41530,42465,41092,42458,43316,43331,42964,43427,42400,43344,43360,43423,41536,45797,42402,43380,43377,93202,77101

Ethereal Ink

Code:

43551,45761,41527,42963,43428,45772,43544,43400,42911,42736,42955,87894,45770,45625,43432,42406,45769,43553,45780,67484,45762,45764,42906,45736,43825,44955,45737,
42453,45799,42471,41542,45753,45601,63420,43535,43548,45755,43671,45738,40896,45779,43673,43672,43549,41094,45771,41105,45742,87895,45781,45800,45731,45758,43539,
45602,43826,43554,45792,45806,45756,45790,43827,45743,42749,40903,45795,45741,42401

Blackfallow Ink

Code:

63481

So what are you waiting for?

Scenario 1 - Glyphs (OPERATIONS)
Your approach to Operations should be similar in a lot of ways to the approach we took above with Groups. We definitely want to plan out as much as possible beforehand, and we also want to try to streamline and eliminate redundancies wherever possible. One of the primary differences, though, is that we don't need to worry as much about catching EVERY possible scenario in our initial setup, since adjusting/tweaking Operations is both expected AND a lot less painful in comparison to Groups.

That said, if you're using a non-linear group setup as we've outlined above, the management of your Operations can quickly get out of control if you're not careful. Let's take a quick look at each of the Operations modules and how we might use each one on a general level. We'll then go through the process of diving into our Glyph example and mapping out operations.

Mailing
In most cases, this will always be the most straightforward of all the modules, so let's not over-think things. Any fine-tuning you'd want to cover with this module probably is going to come back to your Group hierarchy anyway, so all you'll really need here are as many Operations as you have different toons you want to send stuff to.

Shopping
Also relatively straightforward - there won't be A LOT of reason to split this operation up, in terms of setup. That's not to say we won't spend any time tweaking our shopping settings, but remember, we're trying to draw the line here between setup and management. Let's keep the setup on shopping light.

Warehousing
This is a module where I admittedly haven't spent a lot of time, so please correct me if I'm making incorrect assumptions about the way this module actually works. However - based on screenshots, and discussions/posts from the Dev team, I'd say that the amount of overhead Warehousing requires SHOULD be fairly similar to that of Mailing. I will admit that there are likely some really interesting uses for Warehousing that might be accomplished through really working the settings, but that's probably a guide of its own for another day. As it stands - our Group organization will probably satisfy almost all of the functionality we'll need out of warehousing.

Crafting
Although extremely powerful, the Crafting module still doesn't require a great deal in terms of 'setup prep'. Our 2 essential settings here would be Qty and Profit. Granted, you may very well require separate Qty and Profit settings for each of your groups, but I personally set my profit to 1g and don't typically adjust it, so the only point of fluctuation within this module for me would be the restock qty. As such, I won't need to accommodate more than 1 operation per group for this.

Auctioning
And then there's auctioning. In a moment, you'll see why I've saved this module for last. This module is the one area of TSM Operations where your setup MIGHT be subject to unnecessary "bloat", so you'll really want to think about how you'd like to handle this one, or you'll end up with far more operations than you need and no easy way of juggling them. The first thing you'll notice about the Auctioning Operation is that it actually has additional tabs - "Post", "Cancel" and "Reset". The BAD news here is that this means that you might potentially require multiple operations per group, and since we already have QUITE a few groups and we've only covered a single market (albeit, the largest market in the game) this is sure to make a few of you anxious. Don't worry, though, we'll walk through the process of how to streamline this and lighten the load. Before we get to that, however, I feel it is necessary to point out that while the Cancel and Reset tabs offer a thankfully "easy" set of options, the Post tab actually has the potential to branch out even further, given that we might potentially be looking to divide our operations by Qty, Stack Size, and Pricing (and for the love of all things, RESIST the urge to micromanage EACH of the individual price settings here - I'm drawing the line...for now). So, now that I've scared you all away from Operations, let's take a look at how to make them easier, shall we?

Although I've outlined the possibilities for sub-dividing and branching the Auctioning settings in numerous ways, we still need to be smart about it, or we'll end up with an unmanageable mess. Because Operations don't have imposed branching restrictions the way that Groups do, we have a lot more flexibility in terms of going back to micro-manage out setup, but you need to decide whether that's the best solution for you. As I see it, there are really 2 paths we can take here a) Spend a lot of time /resources in out initial setup, removing the need to tweak later on. Or b) Spend less time on the initial setup, with the expectation that we can and SHOULD go back and make adjustments down the road. Given all the new settings and options that TSM 2.0 has added, and based on the fact that I feel it's a better fit for our "setup-heavy" Group example, I'm going to suggest B as a better fit at this time, but if you think you'd benefit more from a low-maintenance model, this guide will still be of value for you. With our Auctioning settings, I really would encourage you to NOT sub-divide these operations, where possible. Consider this example:

Consolidated Operation
Operation 1 - Post X, Cancel X, Reset X
Operation 2 - Post Y, Cancel Y, Reset Y

VS.

Flexible Operation (AKA. Crazier than Kathroman)
Operation 1 - Post X, Cancel X, Reset X
Operation 2 - Post X, Cancel X, Reset Y
Operation 3 - Post X, Cancel Y, Reset X
Operation 4 - Post Y, Cancel X, Reset X
Operation 5 - Post X, Cancel Y, Reset Y
Operation 6 - Post Y, Cancel X, Reset Y
Operation 7 - Post Y, Cancel Y, Reset X
Operation 8 - Post Y, Cancel Y, Reset Y

Now - consider the fact that you COULD also sub-divide those POST operations into 3 separate parts and we're talking about 60+ operations PER GROUP. Multiply that by the 55+ groups that we've outlined above and...I think I've made my point

The Flexible Operation may sound more powerful, but this will only really prove true if you never have to touch them again. The moment you have to go and make changes to any of them, and you end up having to keep track of those changes in multiple places, you'll probably end up wasting a lot of time. The consolidated operation setup will give you that boost in performance over the old TSM 1:1 group settings, without being near impossible to manage after the fact. I'll show you a couple little tricks that I've come across that might be a better way to achieve what you're looking for later on. Go with whatever option best suits your needs, but know this - Not even Kathroman is crazy enough to go into this level of detail with his Operations (yet). You've been warned.

Alright. Now that we've looked at WHY we might potentially split up our operations, let's shift to the HOW and get back into our glyph example. For this, we're going to go through each of our different 'Tiers' of groups to see what sorts of operations we might need. Again, the specific Operations here will be largely subjective, and will really depend on how you run your setup, but hopefully this will give you a bit of a starting point, anyway.

Glyph Operations
The name of the game here, again, is LEAN - so I'm going to do what I did with the Groups example, and make a list of all the possible Operations we might need, and then cut the list down by eliminating duplicates. Let's go through our Group Tiers:

New/Current Glyphs
Mailing - Probably 1 operation would be fine, unless you'd like to sell New Glyphs on a different toon.
Warehousing - The only scenario in which I think it might make sense to have separate Warehousing Operations here would be if you were stocking more than 1 stack of glyphs and you only wanted 1 stack in your bags. Otherwise, 1 operation should be fine.
Shopping - There weren't a lot of use-cases for a Glyph-based shopping list in our original Group example, but honestly, New vs. Current would probably be one of them. Having a shopping list for New glyphs that you could use to make reset/restocking decisions with could be really useful. I'd split this one, but I'd also be prepared to never use any Shopping Operations OTHER than the New Glyphs one, as well.
Crafting - Definitely worth separating things here. Having an increased supply on hand for New Glyphs will be extremely beneficial, especially if they end up selling faster than expected and you need to increase your inventory on short notice. These numbers are largely arbitrary, but let's say we use 1 operation with a restock qty of 5 for Current Glyphs and a qty of 10 for New Glyphs. The other thing we might want to play around with here would be our profit settings - to ensure New Glyphs are ALWAYS restocked during their initial appearance.
Auctioning - Again, this is likely going to be the most divisive module in terms of how detailed people want to get, but you will ABSOLUTELY want at least 2 separate Operations here. Whether or not you need more is up to you, but having an operation for New glyphs where you can adjust Post Qty, duration, and pricing will prove to be extremely valuable once new content drops and you're scrambling to maximize that window of opportunity.

Patch Day
1 Set of Operation will suffice. (Unless you've got "Crazier than Kathroman" auctioning operations)

All Glyphs
This may come as a surprise to some, but we can actually reuse the EXACT SAME set of operations that we'll use for our Patch Day group, here. Because they both cover ALL glyphs, we'll never be able to use them simultaneously, anyway, so changing what we need to for patch day/big events is probably going to be easy enough. I will concede that this MAY be an area where people will want to prepare well in advance, and it would definitely be easier to simply have a set of Patch Day operations to simply enable instead, but these full-scale "Glyphmas"-type events are also few and far between, so you may not want to OVER-prepare, either.

Source(Trainer/Minor Research/Northrend Research/BOGM/Scroll of Wisdom)
Mailing / Warehousing. 1 Operation is probably going to be fine for all groups, honestly. If you have a setup where you are using more than 1 posting toon, this might be an area where you choose to split into 2 Mailing operations. If you're trying to post all glyphs from the same toon, then this might be a good spot to utilize additional Warehousing operations to help even things out and fit into your bag/mailbox limitations.
Shopping - Individual operations might be in order if your server has weird herb prices, and you find it consistently more viable to purchase certain glyphs when then are cheap than to mill/craft. Another scenario might be if you notice a bunch of new scribes hitting the market and you intend on strategically resetting certain glyphs. Source is the biggest barrier between a brand-new scribe and a seasoned vet, so this would be a good area to focus on if you wanted to take that approach.
Crafting - If you find that certain glyph sources sell in higher volume than others, it would definitely be more efficient to keep a higher restock quantity.
Auctioning - The same is pretty much true here. Source if THE primary gating mechanism for glyphs, so demand/price is most likely to be influenced by this tier. Posting at different prices, or in larger quantities, or both would be a great opportunity here.

Ink Type
Honestly, I'd say this is an either/or situation between this Tier and the Source Tier, so whatever set of operations you find necessary to manage those groups should do just fine for these ones. Since this is probably where you'll spend most of your micro-managing time in this market anyway, don't go to great lengths in the setup for something you'll be constantly tweaking anyway. One area where this might really make sense to take advantage of is with Warehousing. Taking 405 different glyphs and trying to split them into 2 or 3 even groups to get them all into your bags can be tricky with the varying sizes of the source groups. The Ink type groups offer a bit more flexibility here and might be worth a look, depending on your operation. Note that all you'll want to do with this is create either 2 or 3 different warehousing operations and assign them to whichever Source or Ink Type groups you've decided to use for your split.

High/Low
Although I did note towards the end of the Group guide that I'm not personally intending on utilizing this tier, if YOU do, it probably makes sense to keep those same Source/Ink Type operation sets from above.

So let's recap and take a look at some theoretical Operations we might be looking at and which Group Tiers we can make use of them with. I'll also try to demonstrate effective Operation Naming conventions to help illustrate how to keep track of them.

Mailing
- ALL Glyphs to Banker (New/Current, Patch Day, ALL)
- Glyphs to Banker 1/TOON NAME (Whichever Source / Ink Type you use to post this 1/2 or 1/3 of your glyphs)
- Glyphs to Banker 2 (The 2nd set of Source / Ink groups)
- Glyphs to Banker 3 (Final set - if applicable)

Shopping
(I'd probably only enable these on a case by case basis. I don't see a lot of need in most large-scale glyph operations, to be purchasing glyphs, across the board. One exception might be if you're buying out a wall, but even then, it might make more sense to strategically target certain Sources or Inks)
- Buy Glyphs below Crafting Cost
- Buy Glyphs below Threshold/Minimum Price
- Buy Glyphs below (XX)g

Warehousing
Based on my understanding of how warehousing actually works, you might be able to simply utilize your existing Group setup here. In this case, you'd probably want to apply these to a Top-level one and not bother to override in the sub-groups. If not, it might make sense to apply these as required.
- Dump ALL Glyphs
- Pull Group(s) into Bags
- Pull (X QTY) glyphs into Bags (if you have multiple stacks and only want a certain amount or only want a partial stack. before you head to the AH. Tihs CAN be beneficial if you'd like to extract only your post QTY - leaving you with empty inventory after you post and/or easy analysis of what isn't posting)

Crafting
- Restock (X QTY) glyphs (you'll probably have more than 1 of these - try to keep this number to a manageable amount, though. IE. DO NOT have 20 of these - one for every number in a stack, that is overkill. Maybe one for singles, and then a Medium qty and a High qty. In this case, you might also want to use the word LOW, MED, or HIGH in the operation name, freeing you up to change that QTY at will without feeling a need to rename the operation)
- Force restock glyphs (override any profit threshold - very effective setting for building up initial inventory, or increasing your inventory level)

Auctioning
Here, I highly recommend going with less-specific setting "categories" instead of a number of very specific, individual Operations. Having 3 general purpose Operations for something like Low Selling, Med Selling, and High Selling, is going to be FAR easier to manage than having separate categories for Post QTY, Stack Size, pricing, etc. So my recommended Operations would be:
- Low selling glyphs (lower post QTY, maybe a longer duration since then don't sell as frequently anyway, low threshold and even low fallback)
- Med selling glyphs (this is probably where 80% of your glyph sales SHOULD occur, so plan accordingly. This is probably where you'll spend the vast majority of your 'tweaking time', since it will have the biggest impact on your overall bottom line)
- High selling glyphs (This would be a great operation to use for New glyphs, patch day glyphs, glyphs where competition is scarce - IE. research glyphs on a server with new scribes, or Ink Type glyphs when hebr prices are out of whack. The actual settings in this operation probably won't change nearly as much as which groups you actually assign/use this on will. This is also one of the most powerful features of TSM 2.0 - instead of having to go in and tweak a bunch of actual settings, and therefore overwrite your old ones, you can simply change which operations are in use.)

I'll also highlight a SAMPLE of other operations that might be a better fit for you:
- Low QTY, High Price glyphs (both minimum and normal price)
- Low QTY, Low Price glyphs (again, both)
- High QTY, High Price glyphs (both)
- High QTY, Low Price glyphs (both)
- Low QTY, Low MIN, High NORM glyphs (low threshold, high fallback ie. 10g - 500g range)
- Low QTY, High MIN, Low NORM glyphs (relative, since the Min price needs to be lower, anyway. ie. 75g - 125g range)

...etc. You can see by the trend that I've begun here that you can very easily end up with a large number of operations this way. You can continue to mix and match the examples I've started, or you could also use specific, hard-coded numbers, and as mentioned earlier, you can also differentiate between Cancel and Reset settings as well. (IE. Low QTY, High Price, Low CANCEL, etc.)

NOTE: I hope I've demonstrated the value in maintaining consistency with your naming conventions between similar operations, but I'd also like to highlight the fact that this also is only a single market, and since the default sorting method for Operations seems to be Alpha, you also might find it helpful to begin each Operation name with the market it applies to, in order to keep them grouped together for easy reference. IE. GLYPHS - Dump ALL glyphs, GLYPHS - Low QTY, Low Price glyphs. These will then all show up together on the Operations Screen.

Cascading Operations
The LAST thing I wanted to touch on with this guide is the ability (NEW with TSM 2.0) to assign multiple operations from the same module to any given group. This might not seem like a big deal, but allow me to provide a few examples of how you might be able to use this to your advantage. Also, please note that not ALL of these strategies have been field tested, so I'll let @Sapu94 and @Bart39 clarify anything that isn't working as expected. I'll also let this serve as a standinig feature request in the meantime

Let's say you have an item(s) where you'd like to post 1 stack of 5 at a certain price, and then a series of singles, at another price. A great example of this might be something like Mysterious Fortune Cards, where you're offering a sort of Bulk discount. With TSM 1, you'd either have to post the stack, change your settings and then post the singles, or you'd need to use separate profiles and swap back and forth. With TSM 2.0, you simply need to have BOTH operations present in your MFC group. When you get to the AH window, TSM will start with the first Operation, and then continue on to any subsequent Operations, as inventory permits. It is important to keep in mind that TSM will follow a fixed hierarchy - the Operation at the top of the list will be first. This means that if Operation 1 posts 3 stacks of 5, and Operation 2 posts 30 singles, if you only have 15 of the item, it won't post any single, and if you only have 25, it will only post 10 singles.

Another example might be if you wanted to restock a base profit margin (IE. 1g) and then restock an ADDITIONAL quantity for anything that has a 50g profit or more. As far as I can tell, TSM will restock anything above 1g, then it will add anything over 50g on top of that. This one I haven't tested just yet, but this sort of "dynamic profit" restocking has huge connotations for power-users, so it's definitely worth a look. Another potential opportunity to take advantage of this strategy would be by utilizing the "Don't Post" setting in regards to Auctioning Prices. If you set a scenario where it won't post and then follow up with a scenario where it can, you can create some really powerful conditions for your Groups.

The majority of these cascading operations will come into play with your Auctioning Operations, I expect, since it's the module with the biggest variance between individual settings, but I really believe the possibilities for tailoring your TSM settings to suit your specific needs has skyrocketed with TSM 2.0. There's also a lot of untapped potential since it's still relatively fresh, so here's hoping we as a group can come up with some really creative and powerful implementation strategies moving forward.

Nothing to IMPORT/EXPORT with Operations, so hopefully this guide has given you enough in terms of tangible advice to get in there and get to work. If you have any specific questions regarding the Operations aspect of TSM and/or your own specific setup, let me know.

Reserved for additional info

I'll be moving this down to the EC area once I get these import lists fixed up. The Source groups are missing a handful of glyphs. I'm tracking them down and should have this ready to go soon...

Original plan was to do another example with JC groups - as you can see from the second post, but if it's more advantageous for you guys, I could follow up the glyph example with something more focused on Operations.

What do you think?

JC groups or Glyph Operations?