Most of my SolidWorks experience is with smaller shops, startup companies, etc.

This typically means smaller number of parts, less focus on drawing detail more focus on actually building things, and also putting your own systems in place.

My most recent big-company experience was with a global manufacturer. I worked in the drafting department and maintained lots and lots and lots of parts and drawings. With BigCo we used Siemens Solid Edge design software. After using SolidWorks, Solid Edge leaves a lot to be desired. But one handy feature was that you could create a drawing, add an assembly, and then create a BOM (same as in SW).

Now let's say you are looking at the BOM and you realize -- oh I need to update the ____ property in one of the sub files.

In Solid Edge, from the drawing view, if you opened custom properties it would allow you to view and change properties for ALL referenced documents. This was not only handy as far as checking the individual part properties to ensure consistency, but it also gave you a window for batch-entering custom properties.

In SW, from the drawing, when I open the "File Properties" all I can see are the properties for the DRAWING (which in my templates has its own custom properties).

Is there a way where I can, say, change the "PartNo" custom property of a file referenced in the drawing from the drawing itself? Right now I have to open the file, change the property, and then close the file.

THANNNNNNKS