Now that your basic account setup is complete, it's time to unlock UpKeep's more powerful features. This guide walks you through the advanced configuration steps that will help your team work smarter and stay ahead of maintenance needs.
Depending on your plan level, you can set up request forms, manage vendors and customers, track parts and inventory, create task checklists, schedule preventive maintenance, and monitor meter readings to match your workflow.
📋 What You'll Set Up
Request Forms — Customize how your team submits work requests
Vendors & Customers — Store third-party vendor and customer information for work orders, purchase orders, and reporting
Parts & Inventory — Manage your parts catalog and track stock across locations
Tasks and Checklists — Standardize work with step-by-step task lists
Preventive Maintenance (PM) Triggers — Automate recurring work orders
Meters — Track equipment readings and trigger work based on usage
🧭 Recommended Setup Order
While you can complete these steps in any order, we recommend following the sequence below for the smoothest experience:
Request Forms
Vendors & Customers
Parts & Inventory
Tasks and Checklists
Preventive Maintenance Triggers
Meters
1. Set Up Your Request Forms
Why this matters
Request forms are the front door to your maintenance workflow. They allow anyone on your team — including requesters who don't have full access — to submit work requests in a consistent, structured format. Customizing your request forms ensures you capture the right information upfront, which reduces back-and-forth and speeds up work order creation.
What you can do
Decide whether requests will be submitted via the internal request form or external form
Customize which fields appear on your work request form
Add required fields to ensure critical information is always captured
Create multiple external request portals for different request types
Share request form links with your team for easy submission
💡 Best Practices
Keep forms simple — only require what's truly needed to triage a request
Add a location and asset field so requests are routed to the right team
Test the form as a requester to make sure it's intuitive before rolling out
Learn more
2. Set Up Vendors & Customers
Why this matters
Managing third-party vendor and customer information is essential for accurate reporting, invoicing, and purchase order workflows. Vendors can include external contractors, suppliers, service providers, and even manufacturers. Customers are the people or organizations your team provides service for. Both are stored as reference data in UpKeep — they are not user accounts.
What you can do
Create and manage vendor profiles with contact details, addresses, and notes
Add manufacturers as vendors so they appear in the manufacturer field on assets
Create customer profiles for external service recipients
Link vendors and customers to work orders, purchase orders, and parts
Import vendors and customers in bulk via CSV or XLSX
💡 Best Practices
Add manufacturers as vendors so you can track OEM details directly on your assets
Keep vendor records up to date — stale contact info slows down procurement
Use the bulk import option if you already have vendor and customer lists
Learn more
3. Set Up Parts & Inventory
Why this matters
Tracking your parts and inventory ensures your team always has the right materials on hand to complete work orders. With UpKeep, you can manage your entire parts catalog, set minimum quantity thresholds to receive low-stock alerts, and use the mobile barcode scanner for quick lookups in the field.
What you can do
Create parts with multiple inventory lines across different locations
Set min/max quantity thresholds and receive alerts when stock runs low
Track standard costs, barcodes, and available quantities per location
Import parts in bulk via CSV or XLSX
💡 Best Practices
Set up your locations and assets first — parts inventory lines are tied to locations
Use minimum quantity alerts so you're never caught without critical parts
Mark high-priority items as "critical" for easy filtering and reporting
Already have your parts data? Use bulk import to save time
Learn more
4. Create Checklists
Why this matters
Checklists ensure your team completes every required task when working on equipment. They reduce missed steps, improve consistency, and create a reliable record of work performed.
What you can do
Create reusable checklist templates for inspections, repairs, and routine maintenance
Attach checklists to work orders and PM triggers
Select from different task types based on your needs
💡 Best Practices
Build templates for your most common tasks first
Use descriptive task names or task instructions so technicians know exactly what's expected
Learn more
5. Create Your Preventive Maintenance Triggers
Why this matters
Preventive Maintenance (PM) is scheduled work designed to prevent equipment failures and breakdowns before they happen. Think monthly inspections, parts replacements, or condition-based detection reporting.
With PM triggers in UpKeep, you can automatically generate recurring work orders on a set frequency — daily, weekly, monthly, annually, or based on meter readings. This helps your team shift from reactive repairs to a proactive maintenance strategy.
What you can do
Create time-based or meter-based PM schedules
Assign PMs to specific assets, locations, and technicians
Attach checklists to PM-generated work orders for consistency
💡 Best Practices
Start with your most critical assets
Use realistic frequencies — over-scheduling leads to technician fatigue
Review PM compliance regularly to ensure triggers are working as expected
Learn more
6. Create and Set Up Meters
Why this matters
Meters let you track equipment usage — hours of operation, mileage, temperature, PSI, and more. You can also set up meter-based PM triggers that automatically generate work orders when readings hit a threshold.
What you can do
Create meters for any measurable value on your assets
Enter readings manually or through the mobile app
Set up meter-based triggers to automate condition-based maintenance
💡 Best Practices
Assign meters to assets during initial setup to keep data organized
Establish a consistent reading schedule for your team
Use meter triggers alongside time-based PMs for a hybrid maintenance approach
Learn more
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to complete basic setup before these steps?
Yes. We recommend finishing your basic account setup (locations, assets, users, work orders) before moving on to these advanced features.
Which plan do I need for these features?
Request forms, vendors & customers, parts & inventory, checklists, PM triggers, and meters are available on paid plans. Check your plan level here to confirm feature availability.
Can I import these data records in bulk?
Yes. Vendors & customers, parts & inventory, checklists, PM triggers, and meters all support CSV/XLSX imports for faster setup.
What's the difference between time-based and meter-based PM triggers?
Time-based triggers fire on a set, time-based schedule (e.g., every 30 days). Meter-based triggers fire when an equipment reading hits a threshold (e.g., every 500 hours). You can combine both for a hybrid approach, similar to how your car should have an oil change every 10K miles or once a year, whichever comes first.
Are vendors and customers actual users in UpKeep?
No. Vendors and customers are stored as reference data for use in work orders, purchase orders, and reporting. They do not have login access to your UpKeep account.
Should I set up parts before or after vendors?
Either works, but setting up vendors first is helpful since you can reference them when creating parts. If you already have your parts data ready, you can import parts first and link vendors later.