A Note From Pat
The Doors Are Open Again
By the time you read this, most of you will have just started school or will be starting next week. How’s it going? If you had money on how fast that first bathroom work order would come in, I hope you bet the under. You all have already added over 10,000 new requesters to the system since last month!
I know this is a hectic time for you, so I’ll be as brief as possible. I have two things I wanted to mention.
First, we just launched an awards program called Hallway HEROES. The goal of this is to recognize the custodians, technicians, and team members who make a difference every day but never really get recognized for their efforts. We want to show the world how great they are! There is more information below about how to nominate someone (or multiple people).
Second, I want you to know about some changes coming to your notification emails. Currently all users who receive email notifications about their work orders or events can reply to the email notifications, and our system will take that message and post a comment on the Event or Work Order Request. BUT, the notification email comes from a no-reply@operationshero.com, so most people don’t know that it will accept replies. We will be updating that email in the near future but want to give you notice, because some of you have email filters to move our emails to a special folder. I’ll share more as the email changes but wanted you to have the heads up for now.
Whatever this year throws at your buildings, I’d bet on your HERO crew every time. Have a great school year.
~ Pat
New Program
Introducing Hallway HEROES
You already know the person. They unlock the building at 5:30 a.m., they fix the thing nobody else can fix, and they have never once asked for credit.
Hallway HEROES is how we put them in front of an audience.
| Who you can nominate | Custodians, maintenance technicians, grounds crew, HVAC and trades specialists, and operations team members |
| Who can nominate | Facilities and operations leaders at K-12 schools, colleges, and universities |
| What it takes | Their name, a photo, and the story of why they matter. About five minutes. |
| What they get | A weekly spotlight on LinkedIn, Facebook, and right here in The Toolbox |
| Grand prize | A scholarship awarded in the winner’s name to a student at their school |
| Deadline | Fall nominations close November 23, 2026 |
Someone on your team deserves this. You know exactly who it is, and five minutes puts them in the spotlight.
Product Corner
Recent Product Updates
Our team ships every couple of weeks, so your platform keeps getting better without you lifting a finger. Here is what landed recently.
| Product | What’s New | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| InspectionHQ | Inspections that update the asset | When an inspector records what they found, the asset record updates itself: condition, serial number, remaining useful life, warranty dates. Nobody re-types anything afterward. |
| InspectionHQ | Sections that start collapsed | Long inspection forms open on what matters first. Your inspectors expand the rest as they go. |
| HeroHQ | Build your own reporting categories | You are no longer limited to the categories we ship. Create your own top-level categories with your own codes, and rename a code to update everything beneath it. |
| HeroHQ | Requests inherit classification from their asset | Attach an asset to a work request and the request classifies itself. One less dropdown for your requesters. |
| HeroHQ | Uniformat codes per workflow | A plumbing workflow no longer asks requesters to scroll past every electrical and roofing code. Admins choose which codes each workflow offers. |
| InventoryHQ | Purchase requests, newest first | Most recent requests at the top, and clicking one opens a read-only view with its items, attachments, supplier, fees, and comments. No more hunting behind the action buttons. |
| EventHQ | Room to write in services | Service descriptions and instructions now hold up to 2,000 characters, so your setup teams get real instructions instead of a squeeze. |
| Cost Centers | Chargeback defaults and a reversible switch | Each workflow decides whether new work orders start opted into chargebacks, and the request-level toggle is now reversible without double-charging anything already approved. |
Plus a long list of fixes across every product, including calendar display on very busy days, event confirmation emails, and imported athletic event times landing in the right time zone.
Heads Up
Users Can Now REPLY to Emails
We want to make communication easier so we are changing the way our emails work. Any user who gets an auto-generated email about their request can now hit reply, to leave a message or update their request. Their message will automatically be posted as a comment on that request or event.
BUT there is one small problem… The FROM address is: no-reply@operationshero.com. It says “don’t reply” in the name, so no one knows you CAN actually reply.
So… we are changing our FROM address next month. But we wanted to make you aware of this now. If you or your IT team has mail rules or filters that route no-reply@operationshero.com into a specific folder, those rules will need to be updated when the address changes. We wanted to flag this issue for you now.
We’ll send a separate notice with the new address and the exact date before anything changes. In the meantime, let people know: they can actually REPLY to the no-reply email!
On Demand
Missed the Mid-Year Review? Here’s the Recording.
Pat and Paul walked through everything we shipped this year and gave a first look at what is coming next. It runs 77 minutes, so pour a coffee, or jump straight to the part you care about.
2026 Mid-Year Review · 77 minWhat’s covered
- The PlanningHQ overhaul
- InspectionHQ, start to finish
- AI in InventoryHQ
- Online payments coming to EventHQ
- The new AutomationHQ smart-door work
- Live Q&A from your peers
One ask: this recording is unlisted and includes roadmap detail we don’t share publicly. Please keep it inside your team.
Client Spotlight
Hear From Shannon Hooper at Aquinas College
Shannon Hooper is the Operations Office Manager for the Physical Plant Department at Aquinas College. In our newest testimonial video, she shares how her team put OperationsHERO to work and what changed once they did.
Shannon Hooper · Aquinas CollegeWe are always looking for clients to share their stories. If you’d like to participate, or you know someone with a good one, reach out to Sarah at sarah@operationshero.com.
From the Blog
Back-to-School Readiness: A Facilities Inspection Guide
Keys jingling, coffee going cold in your hand, room to room, building to building. You know the walk.
Finding the problem is the easy part. Making sure it actually gets fixed is where most inspection processes fall apart: the finding lives on a clipboard, the repair lives somewhere else, and nobody can prove the loop ever closed.
The guide covers six things that change when your inspections feed your work orders directly, including templates you build yourself, photo capture that travels with the work order, walkthroughs that keep working when the Wi-Fi doesn’t, and dashboards that show readiness building by building.
That’s the job InspectionHQ was built to do. Flag it in the field, and the repair is already moving before you’re back at your desk.
Curious whether InspectionHQ fits your operation? Reach out and we’ll set up a closer look.
Something New to Look At
Our Website Got a Glow Up
operationshero.com has been rebuilt from the ground up: cleaner, faster, and organized around what the 7HQ actually does for your campus rather than a list of features.
Welcome
New Heroes
We have some new faces to welcome. Here are the teams that recently joined the OperationsHERO community. If you know them, reach out and say hi.
- Anne Arundel County Public SchoolsAnnapolis, MD
- The Church of the AdventSpartanburg, SC
- Grant County Schools (WV)Petersburg, WV
- Pattonville School DistrictSaint Ann, MO
- Warrensburg-Latham CUSD #11Warrensburg, IL
- Johnson Creek SchoolsJohnson Creek, WI
- Mount Tamalpais SchoolMill Valley, CA
- Nottingham School DistrictNottingham, NH
- ASTEC Charter SchoolsOK
- Webster County Schools (WV)WV
- Davis Joint Unified School DistrictDavis, CA
- KLS Leasing II, LLCBentonville, AR
- Tulsa School of Arts and SciencesTulsa, OK
- Tulsa Legacy Charter SchoolTulsa, OK
- Tulsa Honor AcademyTulsa, OK
- KIPP Tulsa College PreparatoryTulsa, OK
- College Bound AcademyTulsa, OK
- Fairview School Districts 3 & 13Fairview, MT
- Grandview C-4 School DistrictGrandview, MO
- Tomorrow River School DistrictAmherst, WI
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