What is best way to check if an incident has already been created for an issue before creating a duplicate incident?

[Randy33]

I want to see if there is an easy way to check if an incident had already been created for an issue before a duplicate incident is created.  I could use a related link however the new incident would need to already be created before being able to view any active incidents by a caller.  Any suggestions? 

[Elijah Aromola]

When you say duplicate do you mean an incident with the exact same information? Such as description/short description? Or do you just mean a similarly classified incident created for that user?

[Randy33]

The incident may not be identical but rather for the same issue (category, subcategory and CI may be the same).

[Priyanka Gupta]

After the values cat, subcat, CI are entered, run an Ajax call in the background to check if any active incidents share the same information. If yes, alert the user with a message providing them with the existing Incident no(s). Ask the user if they would like to continue or abort creating the new Incident.

I have done this for one of my applications but that is based on a primary key like booking number.

I provided a lookup icon next to the field so that the user could check if something with that booking number exists. If so, I show them a msg asking if they would still want to continue creating a new ticket. Works just fine.

[Tim Nielsen1]

Did you ever figure out what to do about this?  I have the same question.  Since I'm automating ticket creation based on back-end problems; it is possible the problem exists the next time i run my script and I don't want to create duplicate incidents for the same issue.

Checking if the user has a ticket open with a specific Short Description would work.  Is there an API function that can accomplish this lookup?