Custom properties are the backbone of any good SolidWorks library, yet this is an area that could stand a bit of improvement from Solidworks to help new users.  Sure, we can say that most of these items are covered in the training classes, but then we leave it up to the customers to setup this functionality.  Usually they are overwhelmed during initial training and sometimes this gets overlooked.  Why not set it up the most commonly used fields for them?  Custom property use across the SW product library is not consistent either.  IE toolbox, routing, electrical, Composer, etc.  Solidworks does a good job at convincing people to "jump into the pool", but doesn't always "help them to swim" once they are customers.  Custom property use can save our customers soooo much time and effort, but unfortunately are generally a mess at most companies in my 14 years in the field.  We need tools to help clean up this mess, and to help prevent it from happening in the first place.

Custom Property Mess Prevention:

1. Lowest common denominator/Rigid Base Standards:  Solidworks does not have pre-made custom properties in the default templates.  WHY?  Many small customers forget to start using them when they get started and end up creating/converting a large % of their library before they realize they made a mistake.  There isn't a fast way to recover from this (maybe create a custom property converter tool, explained below).  Every default template should include a STANDARD "Description", "Part Number", "Material", and "Revision" (maybe more).  Is there any negative effect to include these as default?  I can't think of one.
2. STANDARDIZE those (almost always used) custom properties into hard coded, (config specific) fields inside Assembly and Part files.  Why are there PartNo., Partno, Part Number, PN#, etc to represent a single data field?  This should be standardized so that everything maps across different companies and locations.  If I download a SW part from a random supplier and they use "PartNo", wouldn't it be great if that just automapped into my company's "Part Number" field?.  It would be nice if we could assume that every SW created had the same property names for these commonly used fields.  I want SolidWorks files to work "like Legos" across any company for the major custom properties.
3. Toolbox:  Every single toolbox part needs to be updated to include these standard custom properties as DEFAULT.  They can be left blank, but there is no reason for a new user to have to create these before using Toolbox.  Toolbox files need to have genuine custom properties to work with SW Composer, not the current "mapped" properties.
4. Weldments:  These need to have this standard functionality as well.
5. SW Composer:  I don't know if anyone knows about this or not, but Composer is a bear to work with unless your custom properties are PERFECT across your entire library.  Composer is CASE SENSITIVE for custom properties.  Description =/ DESCRIPTION in Composer, yet Description=DESCRIPTION inside Solidworks.  Composer is also "configuration specific" and "custom" property specific.  If you have a configuration specific "Description" in some parts, but only have "Description" as a "custom" property in others, SW Composer sees these as 2 separate properties.  SolidWorks conveniently maps these to a single usable property.  This becomes even more tedious when you use Toolbox parts inside SWComposer.  I am currently working a Composer project for a customer where Composer has 16 different meta-data fields for what effectively is a "Description".  Solidworks would've auto mapped these into 3-4 different fields.  This renders the meta-data almost worthless until a mass effort, custom property cleanup is completed to the entire SW file library.
6. Routing: All library files need to be updated to this standard.  The standard libraries are another topic for discussion, but need tons of work.
7. Custom property concatenate function:  This should not be easier to use and why do we have to know the exact variable names to do this?  I just want an Excel like workflow to create these.

Custom Property Mess Cleanup:

1. We need a wizard or tool that can analyze a folder location
2. Read all contained custom properties inside those SW files
3. Map a numerous (and configurable) list of like custom properties (PN#, PartNo, Part Number, PARTNUMBER, etc) into a single property field (ie Part Number)
4. Profit?