Design Study in an Assembly

When doing a design study in an assembly, is there a way to define a global variable at the assembly level and then edit parts in context to reference those assembly global variables? I'm familiar with the syntax for referencing dimensions within a part, but I cannot find reference to driving an assembly level global variable.

One other odd behavior, has anyone else seen that a design study cannot reference simulation workflow sensitive probes that already exist? For whatever reason the design study requires that a probe is created for constraints and then throws a warning saying that a study doesn't exist.

SolidworksSimulation