Past Performance

Your contract references in the Company Library: what each one holds, AI pre-fill from a CPARS or award document, five readiness checks, and how proposals use them.

4 min read

BD Professionals, Proposal Managers

Past Performance References

The Past Performance section of the Company Library holds your contract references: the contracts your company performed that a new RFP may ask you to cite. Your team works from one shared list, so every proposal starts from the same references.

Your references raise opportunity match scores for the agencies you have served, and the Match Past Performance AI task scores your references by NAICS overlap with the new RFP.

What a Reference Holds

The contract - title, contract number, agency, contract type, vehicle and task order number, award date, period of performance and value.
Your part - your role on the contract (prime or subcontractor), team size and place of performance.
Codes - NAICS and PSC codes and set-aside types, so a reference can be matched to a new RFP.
The government's view - the CPARS rating with its area breakdown and the status of any past performance questionnaire (PPQ).
A reachable reference - the government point of contact's name, email and phone.
Your words - a description, keywords and a relevance statement that says why this contract resembles the one being bid.
Evidence - the CPARS report, award document or signed PPQ that backs the reference.

Add a Reference From a Document

1
In the Past Performance section, upload a CPARS report, an award document, a SOW, a PPQ or a reference letter.
2
The AI reads it and fills in the fields it finds. A field it cannot find stays empty, and a value in the wrong shape (a fuzzy date, an unknown CPARS rating) is dropped rather than guessed, because a reference is quoted to a government evaluator.
3
Review the filled-in reference, complete what is missing and save it.

Five Readiness Checks

Each reference shows how ready it is to cite, from "1/5 ready" up to Submission ready. The five checks:

Check	Why it matters
Performed in the last 3 years	Most solicitations accept references only inside a recency window, often 3 years.
CPARS rating on file	The government's own assessment carries more weight than your summary.
Reachable government point of contact	An evaluator who cannot reach the reference may treat it as no past performance.
Evidence attached	The CPARS report, award document or signed PPQ that proves the claim.
Relevance statement written	Says why this contract resembles the one being bid.

Filter the list by agency, NAICS, CPARS rating, role, recency, contract value or missing documents to find the references a new RFP needs.

How Proposals Use Your References

Match Past Performance - an AI task on the proposal scores your references by NAICS overlap with the RFP and turns the top 5 candidates into review tasks.
The outline - the starter volume outline the AI sets up includes a Past Performance volume.
The first draft - "Generate the first draft with AI" drafts each section from the outline and your Company Library, with clear markers where your input is still needed.
Match scores - opportunities from agencies you have served score higher.

How to write the reference itself, and what evaluators look for: Past performance write-ups that score. Staffing the same proposal: Labor Categories (Key Personnel).

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Labor Categories (Key Personnel)

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