Guest post by Nicole Ronchetti, Stellar One
Almost a week post-Acumatica Ascent, and somehow I still feel like I’m equally trying to catch up, unwind, settle down, and get back into the swing of things. If that sounds like a strange mixture of emotions, that’s typically how it feels coming back from a large event like this. This event in particular was an interesting one. Acumatica Ascent was the first event of its kind, specifically for partners and focused largely on training and education. Heading into the event, I think many of us were curious to see how it was going to turn out because it was very different from a typical conference. There was no expo, no booths, and not much visible sponsorship other than TRAILD, who had a table and whose folks were polite and informative as always. But that was kind of the point.
This was one of the first large partner-only training events Acumatica has held in some time, if ever. We see these types of partner events in other software ecosystems, but within the Acumatica channel we really have our main Acumatica Summit once a year and the acuCONNECT virtual conference every September. Summit is clearly the show, with everyone in the industry there, buyers and customers included. We don’t typically have a large event where Acumatica consultants, developers, salespeople, and other partner professionals gather specifically to learn and grow together. So there was a bit of an unknown going into Ascent, especially considering the heavy emphasis on education. Many of us have been to enough conferences over the years to know what “educational sessions” at conferences can sometimes be like. And most are… mid.
It’s tough for speakers, depending on the audience. When customers and buyers are in the room, you don’t necessarily want to get overly technical. There may also be areas of the product, implementation process, or roadmap that aren’t appropriate to dig deeply into with every audience. The broader the audience, the narrower the amount of detail you can really cover. Partner conferences create a different opportunity. Industry experts can hyperfixate on the details. Implementers can share what they’re seeing in the field. Publishers can hear direct feedback. Consultants, developers, salespeople, and product teams can compare notes and learn from each other. The question heading into Acumatica Ascent was: Could Acumatica create an environment where collaboration, networking, and truly valuable deep learning could happen?
Arriving in Denver
The event began Monday, August 17, at the gorgeous Gaylord Rockies Resort outside Denver, Colorado. A short drive from the airport, the Gaylord offers a little bit of everything right on the property. Restaurants, shops, activities, and plenty of places for coworkers to play ping pong or cornhole by the fire, grab a drink, or even take a quick trip around the lazy river. People trickled in throughout the day Monday, hugging old friends and colleagues while meeting new people along the way. The networking at these events starts almost as soon as you walk through the hotel doors, and I think that speaks to the sense of community within the Acumatica ecosystem. Everyone gathered Monday evening for a light reception and cocktails before the real work began.
And there was a lot of it.
The week was packed with sessions, and many of them were long. Some ran an hour and a half. Others lasted several hours. Some took up nearly an entire day. That made scheduling a little difficult at times. If you signed up for one all-day session, you might miss two or three other sessions you also wanted to attend. Depending on your role, you could also end up with blocks of time where none of the remaining sessions were especially relevant to you. But in many cases, the sessions needed to be long. A lot of the content was highly technical, and Acumatica provided attendees with Acumatica instances and, for some sessions, even virtual machines so we could follow along with the material ourselves rather than simply watching someone else demonstrate it.
Much of the training also involved Acumatica 26R2, which has not yet been released. That created an interesting dynamic. We were being given a significant amount of training and exposure to functionality that we won’t actually be able to use in production until the release becomes available. A few people commented that it might have been nice to have Ascent closer to the release itself, so attendees could go home and immediately start applying what they learned. I can see that argument. And because technology likes reminding us who is actually in charge, those virtual machines and training environments came with the occasional challenge. We were, after all, putting hundreds of technical professionals on hotel and conference Wi-Fi at the same time. Many people eventually switched to hotspots or found other workarounds. Such is conference life.
And Then There Was AI
Everything was also largely focused on…
drumroll please…
Can you guess?
AI.
Acumatica AI Studio. AI Automation. AI Assistants. AI-assisted and AI-friendly help with Beacon.
AI. AI. AI.
If you work in enterprise software in 2026, this probably surprises absolutely no one.
There was plenty of other content and learning as well, including sessions around Modern UI, customization and development skills, consulting, and implementation approaches. As you would probably expect with an audience this varied, reviews of individual sessions and difficulty levels were mixed. Some sessions were too hard. Some were too light. And some were just right.
One of my favorite sessions of the week was Tuesday afternoon, a three-hour session on OData and REST APIs presented by Acumatica Senior Technical Account Manager Varathini Bhaskara. It was excellent. During the session I learned new things, refreshed some old skills, and filled in gaps around concepts I had encountered before but never fully understood. Perhaps even more impressively, I stayed completely attentive for three hours after lunch. Anyone who has attended conference training knows that alone deserves some recognition. For me, this session hit the sweet spot. It was technical enough to be useful without becoming inaccessible, and I walked away feeling like I understood the subject better than I had when I walked in. That is exactly what I hoped Ascent would provide.
The Value Wasn’t Only in the Sessions
Tuesday evening was the one night without a planned event, so many attendees headed out for team dinners or informal gatherings. Wednesday evening included the final reception, similar to Monday’s. It was another relaxed cocktail reception and a good opportunity to continue conversations from throughout the week. Thursday wrapped up with more sessions, primarily in the morning, before most attendees began heading home that afternoon.
But some of the most valuable parts of the week happened outside the classrooms. Throughout the event, we had opportunities to talk directly with Acumatica employees and share feedback on solutions, functionality, implementation challenges, and features. The partner-only environment created a much more open floor for those conversations. People could ask questions, discuss challenges, compare experiences, talk about what is working and what isn’t, and share knowledge between partners and Acumatica without having to constantly consider whether the conversation was appropriate for a broader customer or prospect audience. That, to me, is where this type of event has a lot of potential.
So, Did Acumatica Deliver?
All in all, I thought Acumatica Ascent was a great event, and I personally learned a lot. Was everything perfect? No. It was the first year of a completely new event format. There are things that could be adjusted, particularly around scheduling, session difficulty, and perhaps timing the event closer to a product release. But the bigger question going into the week was whether Acumatica could create an environment that genuinely supported learning, collaboration, and networking among partners.
In my opinion, they did.
And maybe more importantly, they created the beginnings of something that could become incredibly valuable to the Acumatica community as it evolves. I’m interested to see how Acumatica improves upon the format in future years, and I genuinely hope Ascent continues.
For those who attended: Do you think Acumatica delivered?
