How to get the initial state of an Incident at the time of creation..?

[dattanarend]

Hi all,

I’m working on an Incident metrics report and I need to include the initial state of the Incident at the time it was created.

For example, I want to know whether the ticket was first created in New, On Hold, In Progress, etc. I only need the very first state when the record was inserted, not the current state.

Is there any out-of-the-box way to retrieve this initial state (e.g., via audit/history tables or a specific field),
suggest the recommended approach, what is the best practice to implement this?

Thanks in advance for your guidance! 

[Ankur Bawiskar · Accepted solution]

@dattanarend 

you can check sys_audit table and it will tell you the initial value

old value is the previous value and new value is the value it changed to

💡 If my response helped, please mark it as correct ✅ and close the thread 🔒— this helps future readers find the solution faster! 🙏

[Dr Atul G- LNG · Accepted solution]

Hi @dattanarend ou can use the sys_audit table, but it’s a heavy table and may take some time to load the data.”

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @dattanarend 

you missed my reply. 

[michelwoody433]

The most reliable and standard way to retrieve the initial state of an Incident when it was created is to examine the history or audit logs associated with the Incident table, specifically looking for the very first entry where the State field was recorded upon record insertion. While there isn't a single out-of-the-box field like "Initial State" on the Incident record itself in many platforms, the recommended best practice is often to use a Business Rule that runs on record insertion to capture and store the value of the State field into a new, custom field (e.g., u_initial_state) on the Incident form. This approach ensures the value is readily available for reporting without relying on performance-intensive queries against the large audit tables.