The TOPICA Basic function SQL_OrgUnitDescendant is used generate an SQL-snippet to call an SQL function (stored in the database) to check if one organizational unit is descendant of some other organizational unit.

The data model in the TOPICA database contains a hierarchical data model for the organization. The organization is made up of organizational units. Each organizational unit (except the root in the hierarchy) has a reference to its parent organizational unit.

This makes it easy - by using SQL - to find the immediate parent or all the immediate children of any organizational unit. However, it is not straightforward to find ALL ancestors or ALL descendants of a given organizational unit.

To address this issue, the database contains a table called OrgUnitLineage, which holds relations between any ancestor/descendent pair. To extract data using SQL (e.g. to build reports), you have the following options:

• Join with table OrgUnitLineage.

• Refer the SQL function dbo.CheckOrgUnitIsDescendant in your SQL query.

• Use TOPICA Basic to construct the query. In this case you may use the TOPICA Basic function SQL_OrgUnitDescendant to "wrap" call to SQL function dbo.CheckOrgUnitIsDescendant.