Setting Up TradeSkillMaster Groups - A Beginner's Guide
(Part 1 of 2) Making And Selling Glyphs With The TradeSkillMaster Addon
Additional TradeSkillMaster videos:
- (Part 2 of 2) Making And Selling Glyphs With The TradeSkillMaster Addon
- New (Feb 2012 New User Interface) TSM Videos by Faid:
TradeSkillMaster is, without a doubt, an amazing addon. It does almost everything that you need - at the price of being rather difficult to set up. In order to get it's full functionality you will need to download the actual TradeSkillMaster addon along with eight other modules (TradeSkillMaster, Auctioning, Gathering, Destroying, Accounting, Crafting, Shopping, AuctionDB, Mailing). Once you have downloaded them all you will also have to set them all up and figure out how to use them. As this can be a lengthy process I recommend you break it up into sections if you start getting bored. There is NO NEED to learn everything in this chapter at once. Instead break it up and do a little bit everyday if you find yourself getting bored or frustrated.
Scanning
Just like Auctioneer, TradeSkillMaster needs a database of item prices in order to function. Again I recommend two weeks of scans before you start (note: Auctioneer, Auctionator, and TradeSkillMaster do not share information with each other - if you want to have databases with all of them you need to separately scan the Auction House with each addon). To scan with TradeSkillMaster you first need to click the TSM button at the top right hand corner of your auction window.
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Then click the "Auction DB - Run Scan" button on the right hand side of the new window that has appeared. Make sure that you have Complete AH scan checked at the bottom of the new window. Then choose if you want to run a Normal or Getall scan. These function just as Auctioneers Normal and Quick scans with the exception the TradeSkillMaster's Getall scan seems to run smoother and quicker (you shouldn't have to worry about running it in Orgrimmar or Stormwind). I recommend running Getall scans so make sure that the box is checked. Lastly click the "Run Getall Scan" button at the top of the window. Once you have done this 1-2 times a day for two weeks you can go on below to see how to set up TradeSkillMaster.
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Intro
Ahhhhh TradeSkillMaster. A nightmare to set up but after that an absolute pleasure to use. Because TradeSkillMaster is new there are a lot of people who still aren't using it - or using it to their full potential. In addition there are many people who know about it but who don't use it because it looks too hard to set up. You don't want to be one of these people. Yes, TradeSkillMaster is difficult to set up and depending on how many markets you are in, professions you have, and auctions you post a day it can even take hours to get everything set up the way you like it. But once you do - wow. Figuring out which goods to craft for a profit, buying materials to craft with, posting auctions, cancelling auctions, scanning the auction house, mailing items to an alt, all of these things will become an absolute breeze. So I full heartily encourage you. Bite the bullet. Follow the steps below and get it set up and working properly - I promise you it will save you TONS of time and stress later.
Setting Up TradeSkillMaster
Part I Groups
Let me start by saying that because setting up groups is a time consuming task it can be quite boring - and because of this I generally don't recommend that you set everything up at one time. Instead I suggest that you break everything up and try to get one category set up at a time. If you do this the task becomes quite a bit more manageable and you will be done with it sooner than you think.
When you open TradeSkillMaster for the first time you will see a screen like this:
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In addition there should be a little popup that appears asking if you want to choose basic or advanced settings. Personally I recommend basic - even if you are familiar with the addons mentioned in the addon. It makes setting up the groups much easier and you can go back later to set up the advanced options if you wish. If you accidentally choose the advanced options but want to switch to basic - or chose basic but you really want to go with advanced - no problem. Simply click on the "Auctioning Groups and Options" button on the right hand side and then make sure that the "Hide Advanced Options" button is clicked for a basic set up (which I recommend).
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Now before we really get into the nuts and bolts of this I want to explain what we will be doing at this stage. I have already mentioned that we will be setting up "Categories" and "Groups" but what are they? Basically they are sets of items that you think are similar enough in price that you will list them within the same price limits (meaning they will have the same minimum posting price and the same maximum posting price). Personally the best way I have come up with to set these up is to group them by price and item type. In this type of setup some sample categories might be, leatherworking, glyphs, blacksmithing, enchants, engineering items etc. Under each category I then set up groups which would have names like, 1-10 gold, 10-25 gold, 25-50 gold, etc. Using this set up the group's name is the posting limits that you have set and the category tells you what type of items are in that group. If you want to change the price of an item later simply go to it's group (which should be pretty easy to find if your categories are set up correctly) and move the item from one group into another.
In order to create new categories and groups first type "/tsm" to bring up the TradeSkillMaster window. Then click the "Auctioning Groups / Options" button on the right hand side of the window; click "Categories / Groups" in the left hand window; and make sure that the "Auction Defaults" tab is selected at the top.
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In this window you can make changes to the settings for ALL of your categories and groups. These are basically your default settings and as you set up categories/groups you will make slight changes to these settings for each category and group. Because you will change these for each category and group you create when you set these up for ALL categories you want to choose the settings that will apply to most of your sales - as this will enable you to make as few changes as possible. The settings you can change are:
Post Time: Change this to list your auctions for 12, 24, or 48 hours.
Post Cap: This number determines how many of the same auction you can have up at the same time.
Per Auction: This determines how many items will be included in each auction. For example if you want to sell 5 stacks of herbs with 10 herbs per stack in 12 hour auctions then post time would be 12h, post cap would be 5, and per auction would be 10.
Undercut by: This is the amount that TSM will automatically undercut by when posting auctions.
Bid Percent: This is how TSM figures out what to put the bid price at. It is a percentage of the items buyout price. Example: If you have an auction with a 100 gold buyout and your bid percent is set at 70% then the items bid price will be 70 gold.
Price Threshold: This is the amount below which TSM will not post any items. Example: If this is set to 10 gold and there are already items on the AH being sold for 9 gold then TSM will not post that item.
Fallback Price: This is the price TSM will list the item at if it is the only one on the Auction House.
Again, set these numbers to the numbers that you think will apply to most of your auctions now. Personally I don't worry too much about Price Threshold and Fallback Price at this point as those are the two settings that I will be changing for each group I set up.
Once you have these settings done it is time to start creating categories and groups. To do this simply click the "Create Category / Group" tab at the top of the window. Then type in the category and group names that you want.
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Once you have done this you will need to move your groups into the categories that you want. In order to do this just click the category you want to set up in the left window; click the groups you want in the particular category and then click "Add".
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Once this is done you can set up the Category and Group override settings. To do this just click on the category or group you want to adjust and then click the Category or Group Overrides tab at the top of the window on the right. You will then see the default settings you determined early and will be able to modify them for each particular category / group.
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The last step is to add items to each group. To do this click on the group you want to add items into and make sure the "Add/Remove Items" tab is selected at the top. You will see a list of all the items in your bags at the time. Simply click the items that you want to add to the group and then click "Add".
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And that is it! Simply do this for all the items that you want added to groups so that you can post/cancel them quickly. If you find that it is too much work to do all at one time simply break it up into smaller tasks. Set up one category a day and you will find that you have TSM totally set up in very little time.
PART II CRAFTING WITH TRADESKILLMASTER
TradeSkillMaster's ability to both handle the AH and craft is what really sets it apart. TSM will figure out what is profitable to make, queue up a crafting list, and make all the items in a few simple steps.
To get started type /tsm and select the "Crafting Options" button on the right side of the screen. You will see a screen where you can select the general settings for crafting in TSM. Here you can set settings that will determine how your tradeskill window is organized, how TSM will determine what items are profitable, and how TSM will determine what materials you already have on you. The settings you can choose are:
Sort Crafts By: Here you can choose how to sort your crafts in the trade skill window
Sort Order: Choose ascending or descending
Show Crafting Cost In Tooltip: Shows the cost to craft an item in the tooltip for the item
Get Mat Prices From: This determines how TSM determines the material price (or cost to craft) of an item. Generally I would have market or min buyout chosen for either Auctioneer or AuctionDB (the TSM scanner).
Get Craft Prices From: This is the same thing as "Get Mat Prices From" except that it determines how TSM figures out the sell price for the finished crafted product.
Profit Deduction: This subtracts a percentage of the price from the craft price. I recommend setting this at at least 5% to account for AH listing costs.
Addon to Use for Alt data: If you have an addon that tracks your inventory across all of your alts you can choose which one you want TSM to use here.
Characters to Include: Toons you want to include when TSM determines what mats you already have available. Guilds to Include: Guild banks that you want to include when TSM determines what mats you already have available.
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Once this is done you need to set up the settings for your crafting window. Click the "Craft Management Window" tab and set all the below settings to what you wish them to be.
Close TSM Frame When Opening Craft Management Window - Checking this box will close the main TSM window when you open the TSM crafting window.
Unknown Profit Queueing: Here you can choose what TSM will display when it doesn't know either the material or finished price of an item (AKA when your database doesn't include the data for the item). You can either have TSM set the value to be your Fallback price (assuming you have put the item into a group) or you can have TSM simply display --.
Show Profit Percentages: Check this box to show your profit as a percent as well as a simple gold amount.
Frame Scale: This sets the scale (size) or your crafting window.
Double Click Queue: Double clicking an item in the crafting window will add it to your queue the number of times you have set here.
Include Items on AH When Restocking: Click this box to have TSM count any items you have on the Auction House when figuring out how many items to restock. Example: Assuming you have 2 glyphs of blabla in your bags and 2 on the AH and you have told TSM that if you have less than 5 glyphs of blabla you should restock until you have 5 glyphs. If this box is checked TSM will que 1 glyph (it counts you as having 2 in your bags and 2 in the AH) if, on the other hand, this box isn't checked, then TSM will queue 3 glyphs (it counts you as having only the two in your bags).
Min Restock Quantity: You will only add items to your crafting queue if you need to make more than the number here. Example: If you set this number to 4 and you are down one glyph of blabla the glyph will not be added to your crafting que. You won't make a glyph of blabla until TSM says that you need to make four of them.
Max Restock Quantity: This is the number of an item you want to have after restocking. Example: If this number is set to five and you have two glyphs of blabla you will make 3 glyphs (assuming your Min Restock Quantity is also 3 or below).
Minimum Profit in % and in gold: Set these values to determine the % of value or gold value in profit an item needs to make before TSM adds it to your que.
Fliter Out Items With a Low Seen Count: Check this to have TSM check how many times an item has been seen before adding it to your queue.
Seen Count Source: This will determine the database used to determine how many times an item has been seen by you.
See Count Filter: The number of times an item must have been seen before it is added to your queue. NOTE: If you want to set up separate profiles for different characters simply head to the Profiles tab to do so.
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Now it is time to set up your individual profession. First click on the profession tab you want to set up on the left side of the window (note: I will be setting up Leatherworking as the example). You will see a breakdown of your profession. Click on one of the categories and all of the items that you can make in that category will be displayed along with their cost, market value, profit, and times crafted. At the top of the window there should be a button to enable all crafts and one to disable all of your crafts, in addition there will be a create auctioning groups button. If you want to add crafted items to categories and/or groups automatically when you craft them click on the "Create Auctioning Groups" button. A new window will appear where you can choose which category/groups you want to automatically add items to.
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If you want to manually adjust the settings for each item click on the "Additional Item Settings" for the item in question. A new window will appear where you can add the item to a pre-existing or new group, override the max/min restock quantity, choose to ignore the seen count, and force the item to/not to queue.
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If you want to override any of the costs TSM has for materials and enter your own set costs then click on "Materials" in the left side window. Then click "Override Cost" for any item you want to override and enter the new value you would like TSM to use to the right.
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Lastly if there are any other general settings that you would like to override for this profession click on "Options" in the window on the left. Another window will open up where you can override the sorting method, min/max restock quantity, and minimum profit settings.
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Now that all of your settings are (finally!) set you can build your craft queue. To do this click on "Crafts" at the top of the window on the left. Then click on "Show Craft Management Window" to bring up the crafting window.
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When the crafting window comes up you will be able to see the items you can craft; the number of craftable items you have on the AH, in your bags, in the bank, on alts; the value of the finished item; the estimated profit you will get for an item; and you will be able to choose to build a crafting queue with all the items that meet your settings or with all the items that you have available to you.
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Once you stock your queue a list of needed mats will appear in the bottom window and a list of crafted items will appear in the window on the right along with the estimated total mat cost and estimated total profit. Simply click "Craft Next" to craft the next item in your queue.
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If you don't have all the items you need to craft all of the items in your queue TSM makes it easy to buy all the items you need from vendors and the AH. Anytime you click on a vendor that sells materials you need for your crafting queue a new button will appear at the top of the vendor window. Simply click it and TSM will buy all the items that you need from the vendor.
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In order to buy the materials you need from the AH open TSM in your AH window. Click the eighth button down on the right side "Shopping - Crafting Mats" and a window will appear listing all the mats you need along with the cheapest available. You can then buy the items directly from this window until you have all the materials you need.
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Congrats! You now have everything set up so that you can automatically craft items that will bring you a profit when sold on the AH.
PART III AUTOMAILING WITH TRADESKILLMASTER
Another nice feature TSM has is the ability to automatically mail certain items to another character. To set this up type "/tsm" to open up the addon. Then click the fourth button on the right side "Mailing Options". This will open a window where you can type in the name of a character that you want to automatically mail items to.
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Once the character has been selected simply click all the items that you would like to send to the character automatically and click "Add".
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Once you have this set up the way you want simply go to a mailbox. When you open the mail window there will be a new button at the top. Simply click this button and TSM will automatically send off the items. Your mail is now set up!
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Part IV - USING THE AUCTION HOUSE WITH TRADESKILLMASTER
At this point you have TSM set up to autopost, craft, and automail. All of these are done away from the auction house - open TSM at the AH though, and a whole new range of options open up. In order to open TSM at the AH simply click the TSM button at the top right of your AH window. A new TSM window will open up to the right of the AH window. From here you can autopost auctions, cancel auctions that have been undercut, cancel all of your auctions, identify auctions you can buyout in order to raise the price of your auctions, scan the AH, search for items at a certain price, search for items to mill/prospect/disenchant, search for crafting materials, and set up and run a snatch list.
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Click the "Post Auctions" button to automatically post auctions for the items you have previously sorted into groups.
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Click on the "Auctioning - Cancel" button to cancel automatically scan and cancel any of your auctions which have been undercut.
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Click on the "Auctioning - Cancel All" button to cancel all of your auctions or to cancel auctions by item name.
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Click the "AuctionDB - Run Scan" button to scan the auction house and update your database. You can do fast scans, normal scans, or just scan for certain professions.
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Click the "Shopping - General Buying" button to search for, and buy, specific items at specific prices.
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Click the "Shopping - Milling/Disenchanting/Prospecting" button to search for items to mill/DE/prospect. (NOTE: As of right now you can't search for items to DE. This should become available in a future build I believe.)
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The "Shopping - Crafting Mats" button was already covered previously in part II - Crafting with TSM.
Lastly hit the "Shopping - Dealfinding" button to set up a snatch list similar to Auctioneer. To set up your list hit the "config" button in the top right of the window. You can add items to your list by dragging the item from your bags, shift clicking the item, or typing in the item ID.
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As soon as you have added the item you can choose to search for it only in stacks of 5 (useful for herbs and ore) and set the price you want.
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Once you have added all of the items you want to your Dealfinder (or snatch) list and set the other configurations simply close out of the window and click on the "Dealfinding" button on the right side of your screen to run the scan.
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TSM is now fully set up and ready to go! While setting it up will take you some time I am sure that in the long run you will find that using this addon regularly will save you tons of time along with a lot of hassle.
You now know how to use the three major gold making addons. As you can see they have many similarities but at the same time they are each different and have their own strengths and weaknesses. Personally I use Auctioneer to do searches such as vendor, disenchant, and snatch; I use Auctionator to buy items in bulk and to sell items that I haven't added to a group in TSM; and lastly I use TSM to post my regularly sold items (which I have added to various categories and groups), cancel auctions, craft, and mail. I suggest you try all three addons out and come up with your own routine as to which addons you use for what :).
Additional Resources:
TSM Videos on Power Word: Gold:
- Setting Up TradeSkillMaster Groups - A Beginner's Guide Video
- Video Tutorial: Making And Selling Glyphs With The TradeSkillMaster Addon
- Using TradeSkillMaster, Auctioneer And Auctionator - A Video Tutorial
Official TSM Info:
Recent Power Word: Gold posts related to TradeSkillMaster (auto-generated).
The Power Word: Gold Guide Free is Copyright © 2011 Jim Younkin. Guide contributors include Bangkok Bill and fluxdada.
