What’s New in UpKeep: August 2026 Product Release

The headline is Nova custom apps on mobile. The zero-code apps you build by talking to Nova — custom work order views, reorder dashboards with one-click purchase orders — are now accessible directly from the latest iOS and Android apps, in a new Apps section where you can browse and favorite every app you've built or had shared with you. Spencer demos two live: an Edge sensor monitoring dashboard, built by a non-engineer at UpKeep just by talking with Nova, that shows alert, warning, and connection status from the floor and even activates new sensors on the fly; and a camera-launching app where AI analyzes a photo of a torn conveyor belt and drafts the work order for you. Builders get new tools too — tell Nova to optimize any app for mobile, preview it across desktop, tablet, and portrait or landscape phone views, and annotate directly on the app (“make this button blue,” “add an asset dropdown and make it required”) so Nova knows exactly what to change.

From there, the session covers a major round of offline enhancements for iOS and Android — work orders due today or this week are pre-downloaded, checklists update with no spinners and no errors, and everything syncs automatically the next time the phone finds a connection, because on most sites the signal dies exactly where your asset is. Then two previews of what's coming: checklists that work as inspections, with failure points, asset and location assignment (no more creating 50–60 work orders one at a time), QR codes that launch inspections on mobile, inspection history, and failures that automatically become requests — rolling out in the next 3–4 weeks; and Nova workflows, now in beta, where you describe decision-tree logic in plain English and Nova builds event-driven and time-driven automations, from Slack alerts on high-priority requests to auto-created monthly cycle counts.

You'll leave knowing:

• How to use Nova custom apps from your phone — the new Apps section in the latest iOS and Android apps, favoriting, and what a mobile-first app can do, from an Edge sensor monitoring dashboard (built by a non-engineer, with on-the-fly sensor activation from the floor) to a camera app where AI turns a photo of damage into a draft work order.

• How to build and refine apps for mobile: tell Nova to optimize an app for a mobile device, preview it across desktop, tablet, and portrait/landscape phone views, and annotate directly on the app so Nova knows exactly which part to update — plus how sharing works (apps are available to all paid user types and are shared to individuals or your whole org).

• What changed with offline support on iOS and Android — work orders due today or this week pre-download automatically, technicians can complete work orders and update checklists with no connection, and everything stores locally and syncs the moment a connection returns. No spinning, no errors, no waiting.

• What's coming for checklists and inspections (next 3–4 weeks): a redesigned checklist page with preview mode, failure points on checklist items, inspections assigned to assets and locations with a couple of clicks instead of 50–60 individual work orders, QR codes that launch inspections on mobile, inspection history, and failures that automatically create requests that can become work orders.

• How Nova workflows (now in beta) automate work in the background: event-driven flows like high-priority request triage with Slack notifications and location-based team routing, time-driven flows like auto-generated monthly cycle counts, AI-powered steps, a full audit history of every run — and editing that's as simple as describing the change to Nova.