app publishing access trouble

Repost for timlau:

My team has created a PowerBI app (known as "big app") that consists of 5 "sub-apps". What this means is that in our big app, we've created a single dashboard whose tiles are links to reports and dashboards that exist in the workspaces of the 5 sub-apps. All of the app workspaces (both the big and sub) are published to the same audiences.

Now, users in the audience are able to see the single dashboard of the "big app", and they're also able to access some dashboards and reports in each of the sub apps. However, the funny thing is that there are other dashboards and reports in that same sub app that users can't access , even though they are published to the same audience through the same app which comes from the same app workspace. 

I know that the whole point of apps is to bundle a collection of reports and dashboards together and give them all the same level of permissions across all the published assets in the app, so why does it seem like some dashboards and reports in the same app have different access levels? 

Background of app creation:

We got access to all the original dashboards and reports from different app workspaces, made "copies" by downloading the .pbix files, then uploaded the copies to the correct new sub-app workspace. This copying process should have copied all the content and all the related data sets over, and the published app's permission list should override the individual permission list of the original dashboards and reports. 

Hi ipattis,

If you directly share those dashboards and reports (in the sub app that can't be accessed) to users, are they able to view them? Besides, please grant users permission to the underlying dataset of those dashboards and reports. Reference: My dashboard recipients see a lock icon in a tile or a "Permission required" message

Best regards,

Yuliana Gu