I will answer both posts, in the chronological order of your questions.
Sending orders is the easiest part. Their excel sample sheet is already set up for it, and you can download everything here:
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=programInterface
Installing the downloaded file wil create directories in your computer, and you'll find the sample (if you use windows) in this directory, more or less: "C:\Jts\Excel\TwsDde.xls".
I can help with that specific problem, and with other specific questions, but I can't code the whole thing for you: even with what i already know, it would take dozens of hours, let alone if one day you'll need changes, which you will for sure. So, before you get started you have to know if you have the time and are willing to learn excel enough to do most of it by yourself. I don't have a scientific background, and it took me about two years to teach myself the things I needed to code my systems on excel, studying several hours every day, and asking questions on various forums and to various friends (among whom the most helpful one is the guy who's running my server right now, at his house). If you're not going to do this incredible amount of work, and you still get started, then you'll end up relying on others for the next few years, and I can't do it, and each time you ask someone, you'll risk giving away your ideas. It's not a good idea to get started unless you're going to have this process entirely in your hands (except for those limited questions I was talking about).
Forget about the historical data from IB, because:
1) the data is only available for a year or so, which is not long enough for decent testing, unless you're creating systems that place several trades per day, in which case you'll still have a sample with hundreds of trades.
2) they don't adjust prices from contract to contract, so you'll end up with big steps from one contract to the next, and that is a problem I would not know how to solve. On contracts expiring once every 3 months it is already a big problem, let alone for contracts like CL and NG, which expire once a month. So, unless you're building intraday systems that do not trade overnight and that do not rely on yesterday's close, then you should discard this choice of using IB's data.
3) there is a reliable data vendor,
DiskTrading Historical Data Download Server: FOREX, Indices, Futures - Intraday and Daily Market Data - Customer Download Accounts, which sells at very cheap prices (under 20 $ per symbol, and under 200 $ for all future symbols) all the data you need, and I've already verified that its data totally matches IB's data. I use that vendor, so this also answers your next question.
Now this penultimate question: "In terms of account management, PL, account balance/margin etc ...do they allow you to collect this information via API already calculated or do the calculations have to be done in our own development?". Yes, absolutely: you can look at the sample sheet I mentioned (go ahead and install it, as you don't even need an IB account to install it) and you will find sheets for that purpose (one sheet for monitoring the account balances and the margin, one for the trades, etc.).
Now, the last question: yes you can customize anything you want, because excel is very flexible. If you can do it manually, you can code it on excel. Then of course it's up to you to learn to do it, as I said before, even by asking questions step by step. Let's say that I can answer, a few at a time, another 50 questions like these five or so that you asked. Then I'd probably start getting tired, but obviously you can also ask other people. The most useful forum for this type of questions is, as far as I know, this one:
Forums - Automated Trading
The final objective, which I have accomplished, is to create something that you just need to turn on and off once a day. You could even manage to turn it on and off once a week, but there's more disadvantages than advantages, such as the risk of things going wrong, for an entire week at a time.
The quantity of errors I get, after several years of running my automated systems, is now about once a month, and it's always the same type of error. I turn on the systems at 16 US CT and once a month I find that the GBL, which opens 9 hours later, is not showing on TWS. So I have to restart TWS and that way it shows. That's why I do not recommend running the systems unattended for a week, because you might have this type of problem, and if you don't detect it, it will keep going for a week. And if there's an open trade, it will stay open for a week.
Another problem I forgot to mention, which I also see once a month or maybe a bit more, like twice a month, is the account balance. Sometimes it stops updating. But for my systems this is not a problem. And also, if you don't have the margin the trade will not be placed anyway, so monitoring the account balance is not very useful.
And these are not really my problems, but TWS problems.
I have finally solved other problems, bigger ones, and on my side, such as:
1) bugs in my excel programming (all solved in the first year of automated trading)
2) power outages (finally solved just 6 months ago)
3) connection failures (finally solved just 6 months ago)
I solved these last two problems by using a laptop and getting a secondary connection. It's all explained here:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/trading-journals/140032-my-journal-3-a-11.html#post1749652
Then, after solving all the hardware and software problems, and after creating the automated systems (including years of back-testing on tradestation which we haven't even talked about), I am still having a lot of problems with my portfolio theory and risk management, but this is an entirely different field, which you weren't even asking about. But basically what I am saying is that this is a feat which will require several years. And that's why I can't do it for you, and you shouldn't get started unless you're going to work for years on it.
Here's another post I had written about the work required:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/tra...elling-strategies-faq-help-2.html#post1701804
