The Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia (UVA) faced a familiar challenge: outdated systems, rising costs, and inefficient workflows surrounding student engagement. Their Salesforce implementation had grown increasingly complex over time—introducing high maintenance demands and making it harder for users to work efficiently within the system. The school needed an integrated, cost-effective solution that aligned with UVA’s broader Microsoft ecosystem.
What began with a hands-on “App in a Day” learning session led by JourneyTeam experts, quickly evolved into a custom Power Pages portal, integrated data flows, and early Power BI adoption. Batten has laid the groundwork for a smarter, student-centered future—while saving over $60,000 annually and freeing up technical resources to focus on innovation.
About the Customer
The Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy is one of the newest academic schools within UVA, serving 600 students annually. The Batten School prepares students for public service through a unique blend of policy analysis and leadership development.
As a relatively young and nimble institution, Batten has been forward-thinking in its approach to technology, according to Mark Outten, the IT Director, who oversees everything from technical infrastructure to data strategy and analytics.
As legacy systems like Salesforce became harder to tailor to evolving needs and university standards, Outten’s team began exploring options that would integrate more seamlessly with UVA’s growing Microsoft ecosystem.
The Challenge: Legacy Systems and Overload
Before partnering with JourneyTeam, the Batten School used Salesforce to manage everything from student admissions and academic advising to internal workflows as simple as ordering office supplies. The platform had been extensively customized over the years, which led to increasing complexity and made some workflows harder to maintain.
Cost and Complexity
Licensing costs and reliance on specialized third-party plugins were contributing to growing budget pressures. Beyond the base cost of the CRM, Batten was also paying for add-ons to handle specific functions like form-building and student records management. One such plugin alone cost the school over $9,000 annually. The internal development time needed to support and maintain the system added to the overall cost of ownership.
Modifications and updates were the responsibility of a select few, creating delays and dependencies that made iterative improvements virtually impossible. Even small updates—like modifying a field in a form—could require a disproportionate amount of effort.
It funneled back to just a few people to make changes, and because it touched every portion of the business, anytime you wanted to change anything, it became their problem. That’s unsustainable.
– Mark Outten, IT Director
University-Wide Technology Shift
At the same time, UVA was standardizing technology across schools. This included adopting Microsoft 365 as the institution’s preferred productivity and collaboration platform, as well as launching centralized systems for advising and admissions. As part of that shift, Batten was strongly encouraged to find solutions that could integrate more seamlessly with university-wide Microsoft tools and datasets.
Gaps in the Student Experience
One of the most immediate pain points was the school’s “pre-entrance” form for incoming students—a process previously managed through a clunky Salesforce workflow. The form collected essential information like dietary restrictions, hometown, LinkedIn profiles, and areas of policy interest.
Batten needed a user-friendly, integrated solution that would:
- Eliminate technical bottlenecks and administrative redundancy
- Provide secure, mobile access to student data for staff and leadership
- Enable students to update their own profiles throughout their academic journey
- Integrate seamlessly with UVA’s Microsoft-based infrastructure
Laying the Foundation: JourneyTeam’s App in a Day
The Power Platform shift didn’t begin with a major system overhaul—it began with curiosity. Before Outten made any commitments, he wanted to evaluate the Power Platform firsthand. That opportunity came through JourneyTeam’s App in a Day workshop—a one-day, hands-on learning experience designed to introduce participants to Microsoft’s low-code development environment.
JourneyTeam’s App in a Day session offered something no amount of documentation could replicate: guided, real-time experience with the tools in action. Working through real scenarios with JourneyTeam’s facilitators, Outten said he gained a deeper understanding of the platform’s architecture, capabilities, and extensibility.
It was a learning adventure for me… I needed to see what was there—what was going to be available—rather than just read about it on Microsoft’s website. App-in-a-Day helped me touch the technology and understand what we could actually build.
– Mark Outten, IT Director
The workshop served not only as a primer, but also as a confidence booster. It showed that Batten didn’t need to outsource everything or rely on a small group of developers to move forward. By lowering the barrier to entry, Power Platform opened the door to citizen development and modular innovation.
Building the Solution: The Power Pages Portal
The experience marked a turning point. What began as an exploration quickly evolved into a roadmap for transformation—one that would soon replace legacy workflows with a modern, Microsoft-native solution tailored to the school’s unique needs.
From Pre-Entrance Form to Personalized Portal
The goal was to replace Batten’s outdated form with a secure, self-service web portal students and faculty could access at any time. The new Power Pages portal was built to reflect Batten’s official branding, with mobile responsiveness and ADA accessibility standards. The Student Profile form is a structured data collection tool developed using Power Apps. It collects a wide range of logistical and personal details and can be updated at any time.
Security & Role-Based Access with Azure Entra ID
Student access is governed by Azure Entra ID security groups. As soon as a student is provisioned in UVA’s system and added to the designated Entra group, they automatically gain access to the portal through single sign-on. On the back end, access for staff is controlled via a separate Azure Entra group, giving academic affairs and student support teams role-specific permissions to view, edit, and act on submitted student profiles.
Staff Editorial Oversight
To maintain professional standards—especially for content like bios and images—staff administrators monitor, review and approve submissions. These workflows ensure that Batten’s leadership has reliable, real-time access to polished student profiles for use in meetings, events, alumni tracking, and communications.
“In the fall school leadership will be able to pull up a student’s background, interests, and photo right from their phones instead of printing out PDFs. It’s streamlined, secure, and personalized—which is exactly what we needed,” Outten said.
Early Results & Anticipated Impact
While the Power Pages portal is still in early stages of rollout, the Batten School has already begun to realize measurable and strategic benefits.
By transitioning from Salesforce and its accompanying plugins and customizations, Batten anticipates annual savings of at least $50,000 to $60,000, with potential for more. A single Salesforce plugin cost the school over $9,000 annually— roughly equivalent to the entire Power Platform licensing cost now being absorbed under UVA’s broader Microsoft agreement.
The Power Platform lets us do more while spending less. Just replacing one plugin with Power Apps pays for itself, and that’s before we factor in all the staff time we’re saving.
– Mark Outten, IT Director
The move has also helped Batten shift its internal IT strategy. Instead of spending time maintaining fragile integrations or managing Salesforce customization requests, the technical team is now focusing on its long-term data strategy, analytics development, and future low-code expansion. With the new system in place, they’re not just managing data—they’re using it.
The Road Ahead: Growing with Power Platform
The portal has positioned the Batten School for continued innovation. What began as a focused initiative to streamline pre-entrance data collection is now evolving into a broader strategy to modernize internal workflows and extend the benefits of Microsoft’s Power Platform.
As the university continues rolling out standardized datasets for HR, finance, and enrollment, Batten is preparing to integrate these resources with its internal systems using Power BI. These common data feeds will be enhanced with data collected directly from students through the portal, enabling richer, more customized dashboards.
They are also identifying additional high-impact micro-processes that can be migrated to Power Apps. These include a growing list of processes that were once managed through fragmented systems or email threads. “We’ve already had two more use cases emerge just since launching the portal. With Power Apps, we can build exactly what we need, when we need it—without starting from scratch,” Outten said.
Reflections on the Partnership
For the Batten School, the transition to Microsoft Power Platform was as much about finding the right partner as it was about finding the right technology. From the outset, JourneyTeam’s reputation for Power Platform excellence and experience working with higher education clients made them a natural fit.
JourneyTeam’s ability to collaborate in real-time, adapt to evolving requirements, and empower Batten’s internal team with best practices helped turn a focused portal project into a launch pad for broader transformation, Outten said:
JourneyTeam was patient, flexible, and incredibly sharp. They helped us navigate unfamiliar territory and make decisions that balanced ambition with practicality. I never felt like we were being sold a one-size-fits-all approach—they really listened to what we needed.
Ready to Start Your Own Power Platform Journey?
Whether you’re replacing legacy systems or exploring what’s possible with low-code tools, the right partner makes all the difference.
Contact JourneyTeam today to learn how we can help your institution or company build scalable, people-centered solutions using Microsoft Power Platform.