Hey Thwacksters,
If you've seen some of my other content here on Thwack, you're probably aware that I'm a bit of a fan of Custom Properties in Orion, and extol their use far and wide (probably too noisily, sometimes!). I have an idea for a new page within Orion. Enter the 'Custom Property Mapper'!
In any given Orion instance I get involved with, I spend a lot of time honing the Custom Properties to the requirements of both the business and the Orion use case. One of the things I end up battling with is how the clients will keep on top of the CP assignments, when I'm no longer working with them. This led to my looking in to SQL update queries, and other methods, but none of them were intuitive to the average user, and certainly not something I could leave for people to carry on with when I'm out the door.
So, what is my idea all about? Well, it's pretty simple. I see it as a way of matching 'Custom Property/Value' with 'Other Orion Field', and have Orion set the relevant CP and value, each time it finds a match. An easy example would be:
| Existing Variable | Value to Match | Custom Property to Assign | Value to assign |
| Machine Type | Windows 2008 R2 Server | Device_Type | Server |
| Machine Type | Windows 7 Workstation | Device_Type | Workstation |
| Application Monitor Assigned | AppInsight for Exchange | Device_Role | Exchange MB Server |
The above simple example is an idea of what I'm hoping this FR could achieve. With suitable foresight, many common Custom Property assignments could be automated, going forward, minimising ongoing administration of Custom Properties
Whenever a node is added, or a new application template is assigned (for example), this new process could be interrogated, assigning the values as required.
This would not only ensure that alerts and other mechanics that rely on custom properties within you environment will work, for example, it will also mean that you no longer need fear automated Network Discoveries, since you've got your CP assignments mapped out 
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