I don't use Tradestation, but can offer you the following information:
Symbols preparation
Datafeed is unable to provide list of symbol automatically so you have to insert symbol manually. TWS software is sensitive to symbol category and exchange. Datafeed needs to know category of the symbol and exchange, to create correct DDE request to TWS.
Regarding to this datafeed supports two kinds of symbols and you can use any of them depend on your aims.
Omega symbols
If you are using HyperServer edition for Omega 2000i or Omega Server 4.0 you can use original Interactive Brokers symbols. Omega software contains information about symbol's exchange and category inside own portfolio. Thus, HyperServer is able to recognize it. So you need only to specify the correct exchange and category of symbol inside portfolio. The rule of future contracts encoding is same for the both approaches.
Future symbols
Futures contracts symbols contain two additional symbols at the tail. First is a char of expiration month, second is a digit of expiration year.
Thus, template of futures contracts is is following - ROOTMY
Letters for months encoding are following:
'F' - January.
'G' - February.
'H' - March.
'J' - April.
'K' - May.
'M' - June.
'N' - July.
'Q' - August.
'U' - September.
'V' - October.
'X' - November.
'Z' - December.
Note: These chars and year digit used for datafeed internal purpose only. Datafeed needs to know expiration date to make correct DDE request for future contract symbol.
Example: ESM3 is a future contract for ES future root symbol, with expiration in June 2003.
Important Note: Lists of Exchanges from Omega and from Interactive Brokers are different. Thus, datafeed uses external "IB ExchangesCross.txt" to receive correspondence between these two markets.
Omega Exchange / Interactive Brokers Exchange
NYSE / NYSE
AMEX / SMART
CBOT / ACE
NASDAQ / SMART
CBOE / CBOE
NYMEX / NYMEX
EUREX / DTB
EBSBW / EBS
CME / GLOBEX
XETRA / IBIS
MCEDB / IDEM
HKFE / HKFE
INSNET / INSTINET
ISE / ISE
LIFFE / LIFFE
LSE / LSE
MATIF / MATIF
MEFV / MEFFRV
MONEP / MONEP
PSE / PHLX
SYDFE / SNFE
SOFX / SOFFEX
VTX / VIRTX
Examples:
Symbol - MSFT, Exchange - 'NASDAQ', Category- Stock.
This symbol will be requested from IB 'SMART' Exchange.
Symbol - DELL, Exchange - 'NASDAQ', Category- Stock.
This symbol will be requested from IB 'SMART' Exchange.
Symbol - INDU, Exchange - 'NYSE', Category- Index.
This symbol will be requested from IB 'NYSE' Exchange.
Symbol - BAY, Exchange - 'XETRA', Category- Stock.
This symbol will be requested from IB 'IBIS' Exchange.
Symbol - DAXU3, Exchange - 'EUREX', Category- Future. This is a future contract on September 2003.
This symbol will be requested from IB 'DTB' Exchange.
Symbol - ESM3, Exchange - 'CME', Category- Future. This is a future contract on June 2003.
This symbol will be requested from IB 'GLOBEX' Exchange.
Symbol - YMU3, Exchange - 'CBOT', Category- Future. This is a future contract on September 2003.
This symbol will be requested from IB 'ACE' Exchange.