Find the reference used for job numbering

When to use this endpoint

Read the account’s reference-numbering basis before suggesting or displaying the next job reference.

Authentication and permissions

Authenticate with signed API-key fields or a logged-in CRM session. These calls use the authenticated account’s data; the handler has no additional job-page, department, assignee or client-admin permission check unless stated below.

Parameters

This endpoint has no operation-specific parameters.

Example request

$last = FM_api('Jobs_getJobRefLast');

Example response

"JOB-0042"

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.
`false`	No matching stored reference exists for a database-backed branch, or its query fails.

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

Behaviour and edge cases

job-ref-method='1' selects the largest nonblank active job reference ordered by job_ref_len descending, then job_ref descending. This is stored-length/lexical ordering, not numeric parsing.
job-ref-method='2' returns the empty string without querying jobs.
Other values select the nonblank reference from the most recently created active job whose meta.recurrence_previous_id is null, ordered by cdate descending then id descending. This checks the metadata key, not the separate recurrence_previous_id column.
Legacy invalid JSON is treated as a missing key by Core_sqlJsonExtract; it is not rewritten. All branches are read-only and unpaginated. A reference is not reserved.

See it in Fieldmotion

CRM1

Open the job create/edit dialog. jobEdit.js requests Jobs_getJobRefLast to show the current numbering basis; its automatic-reference flow also calls Jobs_getJobRefNext.

CRM2

No direct CRM2 caller was found in the reviewed source. For batched job fields, see Jobs_getById.

Related endpoints

Jobs_getJobRefNext transforms this result into a suggested reference.
Job_checkJobRef checks whether an entered reference already matches an active job.