Overview

An internal analytics dashboard built for the Horizon League to replace a Power BI solution. The platform visualizes athletics budget data across member institutions, enabling league administrators to compare spending, track salary trends, and analyze NIL/COA allocations — all behind Azure Active Directory (Entra ID) single sign-on.

The migration from Power BI to Next.js + Azure Static Web Apps reduced monthly hosting costs from ~$255 to ~$59 (a 75% reduction) by eliminating per-user licensing.

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Dashboard Pages

The application includes seven analytical views:

• League Overview — Total budget rankings, YoY change KPIs, enrollment vs. budget scatter
• Basketball Deep Dive — MBB/WBB budget composition, expense waterfall, operations breakdown
• Sport-by-Sport — Per-sport budgets, scholarship equivalencies heatmap, recruiting spend
• Staff Salaries — Salary dot plots, role-filtered matrices, head coach trend lines
• NIL, COA & Alston — Collective presence, organizer type breakdown, Alston payment tables
• Department Operations — Departmental spend, outsourcing indicators, MBB/WBB sponsorship ratios
• Year-over-Year Trends — Multi-line trends across budgets, salaries, and department costs

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Architecture

• Frontend: Next.js (App Router) with Server-Side Rendering, Recharts for visualization, Tailwind CSS for styling
• API Layer: Next.js Route Handlers deployed as Azure Functions within SWA, parameterized SQL queries
• Database: Azure SQL Server with Managed Identity (credential-free, read-only access)
• Authentication: Azure SWA built-in auth with Entra ID, supporting internal staff and B2B guest accounts
• ETL: Python-based survey data import pipeline, loading Excel submissions into Azure SQL

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Key Design Decisions

• SSR over SPA — Semi-static annual survey data benefits from fast initial loads via server-side rendering
• Managed Identity — Zero credentials stored in the application; SWA's system-assigned identity authenticates directly to Azure SQL
• URL-based state — Filters passed as URL search params eliminate the need for client-side state management

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Tech Stack

• Next.js 14, TypeScript, React, Tailwind CSS
• Recharts, @tanstack/react-table
• Azure Static Web Apps, Azure SQL, Azure Functions
• Entra ID (Azure AD) authentication
• Python (ETL pipeline)