---
title: ForEachChild
slug: neurons-for-itsm/admin-user-help/enu/latest/foreachchild
createdAt: 2026-07-14T19:16:49.844Z
---

Iterates child business object instances and computes a text value for each of them. These values are then optionally sorted, and then concatenated and separated by a specified delimiter.

Evaluates a text-valued expression for each related (child) business object and concatenates the results into a single text value. The related objects are related to a single parent business object via the **childRelationshipRef** parameter. The children can be ordered by specifying one or more sort fields of the child object as ordering keys.

## Syntax

`ForEachChild(parentObjectRef, recId, childRelationshipRef, childExpression, fieldAndOrder)`

## Enabled For

For a description of the business object categories, see [Notes on "Enabled For"](docId\:u26v9feCFs6iLwA0-PVJd).

| Business Object Category                                                                    | Yes/No |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------ |
| Business Rules: Before-Save Rules                                                           | Yes    |
| Business Rules: Calculation Rules (After Save, with or without Also Recalculate on Load)    | Yes    |
| Business Rules: Calculation Rules (Before Save or Always, without Also Recalculate On Load) | Yes    |
| Business Rules: Calculation Rules (Before Save or Always, with Recalculate On Load)         | Yes    |
| Business Rules: Editing Rules                                                               | Yes1   |
| Business Rules: Initialization Rules                                                        | Yes    |
| Business Rules: Read Only Rules                                                             | No     |
| Business Rules: Required Rules                                                              | Yes1   |
| Business Rules: Validation Rules                                                            | Yes    |
| Client Expressions                                                                          | No     |
| Object Permissions                                                                          | No     |
| Services                                                                                    | Yes    |
| LDAP                                                                                        | Yes    |
| Mobile                                                                                      | Yes    |
| Quick Actions (except UI Quick Actions)                                                     | Yes    |
| UI Quick Actions                                                                            | No     |
| Reports                                                                                     | Yes    |
| Search/Dashboard without field references                                                   | Yes    |
| Search/Dashboard with field references                                                      | No     |
| 1. Except when this field appears on a form or is triggered by such a field.                |        |

## Parameters

| Parameter            | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| parentObjectRef      | The parent business object as an object reference.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
| recId                | RecID of the parent business object instance.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| childRelationshipRef | The relationship that relates the parent to its children.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| childExpression      | An expression to evaluate for each child.<br />If the final element of the concatenation is the same for each instance and is a literal value, the application interprets that literal value to be a delimiter. The application adds the delimiter to the end of every entry except for the last entry.                                                       |
| fieldAndOrder        | (Optional) The order by which to sort the results. Each argument is a list of field names optionally followed by a space and ASC (ascending) or DESC (descending).  Ascending is the default.<br />This function can take an unlimited number of these parameters, including none.  Use additional instances of this parameter to sort the results even more. |

## Return Value

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
Text value.
:::

## Example

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
For example, to iterate all instances of the **ResNoteHistory** child business object for a fixed issue with a certain RecID, use the following within the business rule of the parent business object:
:::

:::BlockQuote
ForEachChild("Issue\_Fix", RecId, "ResNoteHistory#.", "LastModBy + '\t'
\+ LastModDateTime
\+ '\r\n' + ResolutionNote
\+ '\r\n\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\r\n'", "CreatedDateTime ASC")
:::

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
For each instance, the application concatenates the following information: the name of the person who last modified the instance (LastModBy), followed by a tab, followed by the date and time it was last modified (LastModDateTime), followed by a new line, and then the text of the resolution note (ResolutionNote), followed by a new line that contains an underline and followed by another new line. These concatenations are sorted by the date and time the instance was created (CreatedDateTime) in ascending (ASC) order.
:::

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
Here is another example that puts all incident-related configuration items into a single text field:
:::

:::BlockQuote
$(ForEachChild("Incident#",
RecId,
"CI#.",
"CIType + '\t' + Name + '\r\n' + IPAddress + '\t' + Model +'\r\n\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\r\n'", "Name ASC"))
:::