Higher Education Race Chart

Self-contained, animated bar-chart race of enrolment at German universities, built as a Microsoft Fabric static-hosting Rayfin app. Data comes from the Hochschul-Insights Direct Lake semantic model (DESTATIS GENESIS,

Datenlizenz Deutschland 2.0). A build-time snapshot is inlined into index.html so the app renders instantly and offline; an optional ⚡ Live-Daten button re-queries the semantic model at runtime (see Live data below).

No deployment identifiers live in this repository. Workspace, semantic model, tenant, app-registration and User Data Function ids are read at runtime from config/live.json, which is git-ignored. Copy config/live.example.json and fill it in locally. Without it the app runs snapshot-only and hides the live button.

What it does

• Race chart of members over the Wintersemester axis (WS 2019/20 → WS 2024/25), bars grow / shrink / overtake as the semesters play. Colour = Bundesland, with a colour key in the right rail.
• Metric switch: students · first-year students · international students.
• Dimensions-Umschalter (dimension): Hochschule · Bundesland · Stadt (aggregated live from the university-level data).
• DE/EN switch in the top navigation. Only the chrome is translated — Hochschule, Stadt and Bundesland names stay German, because they are proper nouns that have to match the semantic model.
• Report pages (Home · Übersicht · Studenten) rebuild the Power BI report's IBCS layout in HTML; Finanzen and Hochschul-Detail are explicit placeholders.
• Parent-university consolidation: multi-campus brands are grouped under their Trägerhochschule in the Hochschule dimension — IU Internationale Hochschule (22 codes → ~123k) and Hochschule Fresenius (13 codes → ~17.6k). Bundesland / Stadt stay per-campus for accurate geography.
• Custom colours: click the colour dot next to any member in the slicer to pick a colour (persisted in localStorage). Quick actions: 🎨 Marken applies corporate colours to IU (red #E2001A), Fresenius (deep blue #0A2A5E) and FernUni Hagen (cyan #00A0E1); Nur Marken isolates those three; ↺ Farben resets. The three brand colours are applied by default on first visit and the members glow wherever shown.
• Slicer (left): searchable member multi-select with Alle / Keine / Top 15 — adapts to the selected dimension.
• KPI tiles react to metric/dimension/scope/time: current-metric total, members in the race, current leader, internationaler Anteil + Frauenanteil.
• Playback controls: Abspielen/Pause, Neu, Tempo, Top-N (10/15/30/50), Zeit-Regler.

Live data

The ⚡ Live-Daten button loads current numbers straight from the Direct Lake semantic model. It only appears once config/live.json exists and is complete:

1. The user signs in with MSAL (@azure/msal-browser via esm.sh) using the SPA app registration named in the config (scope …/powerbi/api/.default).
2. That Power BI token is passed to a fabric_proxy User Data Function, which runs executeQueries server-side (browsers cannot call api.powerbi.com directly — CORS). Queries are pivoted (6 semesters as columns) and limited to the top ~260 universities so the proxy response stays small; a third query pulls all IU + Fresenius campuses so parent-consolidation still holds.
3. The rows are shaped in the browser (same name-cleaning + parent grouping as the build pipeline) and swapped into the race.

Requirements / notes:

• The Fabric capacity backing the workspace must be Active; if it is paused or anything fails, the app silently keeps the snapshot.
• The webapp origin must be in the SPA app's redirect URIs (add via Graph when the hosting URL changes). Silent SSO only works after one interactive sign-in.
• A placeholder or missing config is rejected rather than used, so a fresh clone is snapshot-only by default.
• Data updates roughly annually (one new Wintersemester), so the snapshot is usually identical to live; rebuild the snapshot via the pipeline below to refresh the default.

Build & deploy

npm install
npm run build:fabric   # assembles dist/ (index.html + config/live.json)
npx rayfin up --workspace-id <rayfin-workspace-id> --tenant <tenant-id> -y

Deployment state lives in rayfin/.deployments.json and rayfin/.env, both git-ignored, so a later npx rayfin up reuses the existing target.

Checks

npm run lint   # ids agree across package/manifest/rayfin.yml, inline scripts parse,
               # and no tenant identifier has crept back into the source
npm test       # snapshot shape + DE/EN catalogue contract (node --test)

Refreshing the data (new semesters)

The dataset is generated from the semantic model and inlined into index.html. Scripts live in tools/data/:

1. hi_dax.ps1 -DaxFile <query.dax> -Out <out.json> runs an executeQueries DAX query against the model. It resolves the workspace and semantic model from -WorkspaceId/-DatasetId, then HI_WORKSPACE_ID/HI_DATASET_ID, then config/live.json — so with that file in place it needs no arguments beyond the query. Requires az login and an Active capacity.
   • extract_studierende.dax → hi_stud.json (university × semester: total / international / weiblich, plus Parent_University for consolidation)
   • extract_studienanfaenger.dax → hi_anf.json (university × semester: Studienanfänger)
   • extract_coords.dax / extract_finanzen.dax → hi_coords.json / hi_finanzen.json (slow-changing, committed — they rarely need regenerating)
2. build_app.py cleans names, tags multi-campus brands with a consolidation key (g), and builds the compact dataset → hi_appdata.json.
3. inject.py injects hi_appdata.json into the /*__HI_DATA__*/ marker in index.html. Then npm run build:fabric + rayfin up to redeploy.

Gallery template

A packaged version of this app is prepared for the awesome-rayfin gallery as higher-education-insights, together with a written comparison against the Power BI report shipped by the hochschul-insights Fabric Jumpstart.

Fabric architecture

npx rayfin up provisions:

• Entra sign-in (Fabric identity)
• Static web app

Getting started

npm install
npm run serve
npx rayfin up --workspace-id <your-workspace-guid> --tenant <your-tenant-guid>

Any workspace or item id this app needs is read from the environment, with no default.

Project structure

config/         configuration
rayfin/         deployment config - redirect URIs are loopback only
test/           tests
tools/          data pipeline and build helpers

Scripts

Credits

Part of Fabric-Apps, MIT licensed.

Data

DESTATIS GENESIS via the Hochschul-Insights Direct Lake semantic model, Datenlizenz Deutschland 2.0.