I've been in engineering for a long time.  Everywhere I've worked we've used  a  Part Number and a Description to describle for all of parts and assemblies. Solidworks does't seem to understand this basic concept. Here is what I'd like to be able to do.  Create parts and assemblies with multiple configurations.  Assign a description and a part number to each configuration using the PropertyManager configuration properties window.  So far so good we can do this using the "Configuration name" and the "Description" fields,  I've been able to figure how to use these fields in a BOM thats good. I can even see these Items in the design and configuration trees.  What I can't seem to figure out is how to link to the "Description:" field so that I can show this information in a part drawing or assembly drawing.  The "Configuration name" can be linked too in an annotation.  Everywhere I tried to find out how to do this , I get the same answer Create a custom property blah, blah , blah.  The problem with this other then being a real PITA is that you can't see the info on the drawing tree or in the configuration tree of the part nor does this show up in the tree of the assembly where used.  This make it very impractical for large assemby and parts with many configurations.  I'm using Solidworks 2011

Any Ideas