# Set a column's role

Shape / columns

A variant of [Change a column's type](https://meridian.online/operations/change-a-columns-type).

Mark a column as a key, label, measure, dimension or semantic feature type without changing its values.

Page: <https://meridian.online/operations/change-a-columns-type/set-a-columns-role>

## Status

Not built yet.

arcform does not do this yet. [Its place on the roadmap](https://meridian.online/roadmap#change-a-columns-type)

## What other tools call it

Meridian's classification; an independent blind rating agreed on 95.7% of 324 rows (variant, version 3).

- Alteryx Designer: [`Feature Types`](https://help.alteryx.com/current/en/designer/tools/alteryx-intelligence-suite/machine-learning/feature-types.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- Pentaho Data Integration: [`Annotate stream`](https://docs.pentaho.com/pdia-data-integration/9.3-data-integration/pdi-transformation-steps-reference-overview) (read 2026-09-27)
- Pentaho Data Integration: [`Shared dimension`](https://docs.pentaho.com/pdia-data-integration/9.3-data-integration/pdi-transformation-steps-reference-overview) (read 2026-09-27)
- Power Query M: [`Table.AddKey`](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/table-functions#transformation) (read 2026-09-27)
- Power Query M: [`Table.ReplaceKeys`](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/table-functions#transformation) (read 2026-09-27)
- Power Query M: [`Table.ReplacePartitionKey`](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powerquery-m/table-functions#transformation) (read 2026-09-27)
- RapidMiner Studio: [`Set Role`](https://docs.rapidminer.com/latest/studio/operators/blending/attributes/names_and_roles/set_role.html) (read 2026-09-27)
- VisiData: [`key-col`](https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/7609212ec2febafa9caba7183cbebfaf49627909/visidata/sheets.py#L1292) (read 2026-09-23)
- VisiData: [`key-col-off`](https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/7609212ec2febafa9caba7183cbebfaf49627909/visidata/sheets.py#L1294) (read 2026-09-23)
- VisiData: [`key-col-on`](https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/7609212ec2febafa9caba7183cbebfaf49627909/visidata/sheets.py#L1293) (read 2026-09-23)
- VisiData: [`key-off-selected`](https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/7609212ec2febafa9caba7183cbebfaf49627909/visidata/metasheets.py#L139) (read 2026-09-23)
- VisiData: [`key-selected`](https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/7609212ec2febafa9caba7183cbebfaf49627909/visidata/metasheets.py#L138) (read 2026-09-23)
- Yggdrasil Decision Forests: [`Feature / Column`](https://github.com/google/yggdrasil-decision-forests/blob/0a54b57c95ff0cf42ecf0310ace0513a4f32cb65/yggdrasil_decision_forests/port/python/ydf/dataset/dataspec.py) (read 2026-09-27)
- Yggdrasil Decision Forests: [`Semantic`](https://github.com/google/yggdrasil-decision-forests/blob/0a54b57c95ff0cf42ecf0310ace0513a4f32cb65/yggdrasil_decision_forests/port/python/ydf/dataset/dataspec.py) (read 2026-09-27)