In FieldEx, assets can be structured in parent-child relationships to represent physical or functional groupings. A parent asset can have multiple child assets (components or accessories), allowing planners and technicians to manage assemblies like vehicles with mounted equipment, buildings with fixed installations, or toolkits with individual tools.
Useful Pre-requisites
Child-parent relationships can only be set if the Parent asset has no parent itself.
Use the Parent field in the asset form to assign a child to an eligible parent.
Users must have permission to create or edit asset records.
Setting Up a Parent-Child Link
Go to Assets > Select Child Asset > Edit.
In the Hierarchy and Classification section, locate the Parent field.
Use the lookup to select a valid parent asset.
Assets that are already children or marked as accessories are excluded from the list.
Save the record. The asset is now tied to the parent.
The child asset inherits some field values from the parent (e.g. Address, Custodian, Customer, Service Zone).
A reference to the child appears in the parent’s accessory list.
System Behavior and Rules
A child asset cannot have its own child only one level of hierarchy is supported.
When saving a Parent Asset that has children, a checkbox appears: “Also update component statuses” allows cascading updates to child asset statuses.
In the Parent Asset’s Job Order tab, jobs linked to child assets are visible.
A “Group by Child Asset” button is available to organise jobs by component.
Automatic Field Propagation
When a child asset is linked to a parent, the following fields are inherited:
Field | Behavior |
Customer | Copied from parent asset |
Address | Copied from parent asset |
Custodian | Copied from parent asset |
Service Zone | Copied from parent asset |
These values are synced only upon linking or when the parent is edited and changes are confirmed via the update dialog.
Why This Matters
Reflects real-world equipment assemblies and their dependencies.
Enables grouped tracking, job reporting, and streamlined asset management.
Ensures component consistency in shared fields like location and ownership.
Tips
Use summary view in the parent asset to quickly review all linked components.
Status changes can be cascaded from parent to child for better control.
Avoid deeply nested asset relationships FieldEx only supports one parent-child level.