I have an attribute of type pim_catalog_number, but I need to change this to pim_catalog_simpleselect. I cannot change this in Akeneo and if I try to overwrite it by importing a new attributes-file I get the notice that I am not allowed to change the type.
But I have a scenario where I need to do this. So what's the proper way to do this? I can imagine doing some direct SQL queries, but what are the consequences of changing the type directly in the database?
For now the only solution is to export the product values, delete the attribute, create the attribute with the right type and then re-import the products.
We are currently working on a proper solution to do that, but with all the feature of the PIM involved (history, rules, proposals, search, etc) it's not an easy task. We dedicate 1 dev full time on this task for the next three months to come up with a nice solution.