Introducing Referee contacts vault

Olly Barrett | Chief Product Officer & Founder, UpliftRFP | New Zealand

At a glance

• A dedicated vault for storing referee contact details (name, organisation, relationship, email, phone, notes) alongside your case studies and key personnel
• Assign vault contacts to referee slots during Approach, and Eva fills the matching fields once you've confirmed the mapping
• Built for solo operators and small bid teams who manage referees manually and need a faster way to populate tender answers without losing control

What's new

Referee contacts now live in Content Vault, alongside your case studies and key personnel. You add a contact once: name, organisation, relationship, email, phone, and optional notes. You can edit, search, or delete them at any time.

During Approach, the Evidence and contacts step shows you the referee slots this tender is asking for. These are detected automatically once the tender has been extracted. For each slot, you pick one contact from your vault. If a contact isn't stored yet, add them to Content Vault and refresh the list without leaving Approach. Empty slots are fine too: you can Confirm or Skip and come back to them later.

Once your contacts are assigned, ask Eva to fill the referee fields, for example: "add Olly and Craig as first and second referees." Eva maps your vault contacts to the tender's slots, shows you the plan including anything missing from the vault, and waits for your confirmation before writing anything. The contact details then appear as short answers, ready for your review before submission.

Approach now follows a progress bar rather than free tab navigation. Later steps unlock only after you Confirm or Skip the one before it, so by the time you reach Evidence and contacts, the referee slots are ready and waiting.

Why it matters

This removes the need to hunt for and re-enter the same referee details across multiple tenders. Contact information stays in one place. Manual transcription errors disappear because you're not re-typing phone numbers and email addresses into every response.

More importantly, you keep control over what gets written. Eva shows you the mapping plan before filling a single field. You see which vault contact maps to which slot, and you see what's missing from the vault. Nothing is written until you confirm it, which is where you catch a missing contact or an outdated detail before it reaches the response.

Who this is for

Solo operators managing multiple tenders: Store your regular referees once and reuse them across bids without manual re-entry. A tender asking for the same three referees becomes a two-minute assignment instead of a ten-minute hunt and type.

Small bid teams: Maintain a shared referee vault so contact details stay consistent across all responses. Nobody is chasing a phone number or guessing whether the title is "Director" or "Director of Operations," because it's already stored and correct.

Anyone who values accuracy: See the mapping plan before Eva writes anything. You catch missing or outdated contact details before submission, not after.

Get started

Referee contacts vault is available now in all UpliftRFP plans. Access Referee contacts in Content Vault, then assign them during the Evidence and contacts step in Approach.

Start by adding your first referees to Content Vault. You can add them now, or later if you hit a tender slot with a contact you haven't stored yet. Refresh the list in Approach and they're ready to assign.

Frequently asked questions about Referee contacts vault and Approach picks

Can I add referees during Approach if I don't have them in the vault yet?

Yes. If you hit a referee slot and the contact isn't in your vault, add them to Content Vault and refresh the list. Confirm or Skip still lets you move forward regardless.

What happens if I skip the referee section?

Empty referee slots are fine. Confirm or Skip the Evidence and contacts step and carry on. The fields stay empty until you return to fill them.

Does Eva write the referee contact details into the tender response?

Yes, once you confirm the mapping plan. Eva shows you which vault contacts map to which slots, flags anything missing from the vault, and writes the contact details as short answers ready for your review before submission.