The Scores (or Data) file is a comma-separated values file (*.csv) that is required to create any project.
Generating the File:
Sawtooth Software's Lighthouse Studio can generate MaxDiff Scores files. Once a Lighthouse study with a MaxDiff exercise has valid respondents, a user can Export Scores, which will create the Scores CSV. Download Lighthouse Studio here.
Sawtooth Software's CBC/HB can also generate MaxDiff Scores files. A user can Estimate Parameters within a CBC/HB project, which will create a valid Scores CSV, with the name of the file ending in "_utilities.csv", within the same folder that the CBC/HB project was created in. Download CBC/HB here.
Scores files generated by CBC/HB are different from those generated by Lighthouse Studio in that the last item is dropped during estimation. In actuality, the last item had values of zeros and acts as a reference item. Therefore, when you upload a CBC/HB file into MaxDiff Analyzer and enter the correct number of Total Items for that project, it will ask you to provide a label for this last item, as it is not in the file.
Expected Format:
The Scores file (or, if using a General project type, the Data file) is a CSV that must have a header row followed by one row for each respondent. The first column must be the unique respondent identifier column. For MaxDiff and Anchored project types, the second column is a fit statistic, also called "RLH" (this column is ignored by the MaxDiff Analyzer, but it must be present in the file) but for General project types, the second column is an item. For all project types, the rest of the columns are items. There is one column per item.
For example, with a MaxDiff project with three items (Red, Green, and Blue) and three respondents, Lighthouse Studio's generated Scores file would look something like this (when viewed in a text editor):
"Respondent ID","RLH","Red","Green","Blue"
10,0.515993301,1.582103078,-1.472694144,0.180289269
11,0.435009393,3.566101927,-1.993275208,-0.332853302
12,0.484804172,0.48928321,-2.874076985,-0.164777067
For Anchored project types, the Scores file should also include an Anchor item in the last column of the file (though the Anchor should not be included in the Total Items count). It will typically have only zeroes under the column header.