By now you probably know that TestStand 2.0 has a better Property Loader that works with files as well as databases. As for getting step properties from a database, Property Loader is fine as long as you have a fairly constant set of properties. The problem is that if you create a custom step type with a new property, you have to add a column to the table. Not a problem if you are running on a little local Access database, but if you are using an Oracle database in the sky, it's probably not easy to add a column whenever you feel like it. It would be better if Property Loader worked off two or more tables. One table would have a list of steps, the other table would have a list of properties, including their names a values. The properties would be related to the step
with a step ID. Then Property Loader could query for all the properties for a given step and get back one row for each property. Of course this would never work with Excel or Text (where it is easy to add columns), so this would require a Property Loader that was just for databases. If anyone has such a beast, I'd love to get my hands on it!