[davidfor]

There is no difference in how series are handled for epubs and kepubs. The Kobo devices do not read the series info from the books for any formats. You need to send the books to the device, unplug it and let the device import the books and then plug the device in again. Assuming everything is configured correctly, the driver will update the metadata in the database on the device. This includes the series info.

The configuration should not have changed, but, the two things to check are:

In the device driver, on the "Metadata, on device & advanced" tab, the "Update metadata on the device" option should be selected. Within that, either "Set series information" or "Update metadata on Book Details page" needs to be selected. I recommend using the latter. It includes the series info and the rest of the metadata you can see on the device.

In the preferences on the "Sending books to devices" page, set the "Metadata management" option to "Automatic management". This lets the driver make the above changes plus do the collection management when the device is connected.

Edit: As @JSWolf suggested, these sound more like categories than series. You can create the collections from these. And, that make me wonder if you aren't actually doing a conversion to kepub. Have you installed the KoboTouchExtended driver to transform the books to kepubs when you send them to the device? If so, any configuration you have on the KoboTouch driver, needs to be made on the KoboTouchExtended driver. If you are actually using collections, you will need to copy the collection management options to the extended driver configuration.