Resolve parent customers from child records

When to use this endpoint

Use Customers_getByChild when rendering jobs that may refer to a customer site or an asset and you need the parent customer shown as a second address/context record.

This legacy batch shape is intended for the shared CRM display cache. Use Customers_getById when you already know customer IDs.

Authentication and permissions

The request must authenticate with signed API-key fields or a logged-in CRM session. The handler performs no additional page or role-permission check.

The lookup and any write use the authenticated tenant; an ID from another tenant cannot be addressed through this call.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`ids`	Array	Yes	Native request array of tokens in `<child-id>_<type>` form. Type `0` means customer and type `1` means asset. Unlike many batch endpoints, this handler does not JSON-decode a string.

Example request

$parents = FM_api('Customers_getByChild', [
	'ids' => ['1042_0', '5501_1'],
]);

Example response

[
  {
    "child_id": "1042",
    "child_type": "0",
    "obj": {
      "id": "1001",
      "name": "Northwind Group",
      "parent_id": "0",
      "is_active": "1"
    }
  },
  {
    "child_id": "5501",
    "child_type": "1",
    "obj": false
  }
]

A customer child returns a broad fixed parent record. An asset child delegates to Customer_getByChild and normally returns the standard Customer_get record. A child without a resolvable parent returns false.

Errors and unusual responses

Response	Condition
`{"error":"not logged in"}`	No authenticated tenant context is available. Invalid signed credentials can be rejected by the dispatcher before the handler runs.
`{"error":"missing or invalid parameter: ids"}`	`ids` is absent. Despite the wording, the handler does not otherwise validate that it is an array.
`Malformed or partial response`	A token lacks an underscore/type segment, contains unsafe nonnumeric customer-ID text, or `ids` is supplied as a JSON string.

Legacy application errors may be returned with HTTP 200. Check the decoded response for error, not only the HTTP status.

Behaviour and edge cases

Customer tokens are grouped and returned before asset tokens, so the result does not necessarily preserve mixed input order. Duplicate tokens produce duplicate result entries.
For a customer child, the endpoint reads the child and parent without soft-delete filters. A deleted child can resolve a deleted parent, and inactive records are included.
For an asset child, a customer-type asset location takes precedence over its owner. Otherwise the owner is used. The delegated final customer lookup excludes soft-deleted customers.
Unknown type numbers are silently ignored and receive no output item.
There is no pagination or explicit batch-size limit.

See it in Fieldmotion

CRM1

Open a job display whose customer target is a site or asset and whose layout shows the parent/customer address. The shared customerGetByChild cache batches nearby lookups through Customers_getByChild; filter Network requests by the function name.

CRM2

CRM2 contains the same shared batch-cache helper, but a production call site was not found in the current CRM2 source. No CRM2 screen can therefore be named with confidence.

Related endpoints

Customers_getById retrieves explicitly known customer IDs with field selection.
Customer_get is used internally for the asset branch’s resolved customer.