Two separate questions here, both have documented answers.
Getting notified about new versions
There's a built-in notification option in the Administration activity center. Go to Administration > Data gateways, click on your gateway, and select Notifications. When enabled, the notification will be sent to the data gateway creator whenever a new Direct Access gateway version becomes available for download. You can choose between browser notification, email, or a push to the Qlik Analytics mobile app. Qlik Help
Should you upgrade every time?
Short answer: yes, and fairly promptly. Qlik's own help documentation states that if you're not on the latest version, your system administrator is encouraged to upgrade immediately. The reason is practical — cloud-side fixes get deployed almost every week and most often do not apply to older gateway versions. So staying behind means you may miss fixes even when Qlik deploys them to the cloud side. Qlik HelpQlik Community
On the end-of-life side, older versions do get hard-cutoffs. For reference, version 1.6 reached end-of-support in June 2025 and is tentatively set for end-of-life by end of June 2026, while versions 1.4 and 1.5 stopped working entirely in January 2026. The current supported line is 1.7.x. Qlik Community
