@Brian Freytag It seems to me that if a RecordRef is returned, and the referenced record has an external ID assigned to it, then that value should be returned. But that doesn't seem to be the case. This really looks like an oversight. One workaround that I've found is to use custom fields with the "externalid" function as the default value, and then get the value from customFieldList element. For example, I'm doing this to get the external ID of the company that a contact is associated with. It saves me from having to make a second request to get the related company (and its external ID). You mentioned that you're working with Projects, but maybe you can use a similar approach?