Can paper and pencil respondent ID be string/character?

Question

Can the respondent ID used in the paper and pencil CBC and MaxDiff templates to read data into LightHouse Studio be either numeric OR string/character? If string/character is allowed - what is maximum number of characters that responent ID can have?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hi! The Respondent ID for the paper-and-pencil import should be a numeric because this is the sys_respnum variable that the Lighthouse Studio will recognize for analysis, etc. You can use the third import option ("External, non-survey data") to bring in another ID you may want to reference. External data should always have the recognized sys_respnum in the first column and any new variables in the columns after that. Feel free to reach out to support@sawtoothsoftware.com if you more questions like this.