Make Laravel Notifications Easier to Manage with Notification Events

Imagine a user completes an order.

You want to:

• Send an email
• Store a notification
• Notify the user through another channel

Putting all of that directly inside your controller can quickly become messy.

Laravel Notifications give you a cleaner approach.

Create a Notification

Create one with Artisan:

php artisan make:notification OrderCompleted

Then define the notification:

class OrderCompleted extends Notification
{
    public function __construct(public Order $order) {
    }
    public function via(object $notifiable): array{
        return ['mail'];
    }
}

Now the notification decides which channel should be used.

Send the Notification

If your User model uses the Notifiable trait:

$user->notify(
    new OrderCompleted($order)
);

Your controller doesn't need to know how the notification is delivered.

Add More Channels

You can send the same notification through multiple channels:

public function via(object $notifiable): array
{
    return [
        'mail',
        'database',
    ];
}

Now the same notification can be delivered through both channels.

Why Is This Useful?

Instead of writing:

Mail::to($user)->send(...);
// Save notification...
// Send another message...

you have one notification:

$user->notify(
    new OrderCompleted($order)
);

The notification class owns the delivery details.

When Should You Use Notifications?

They're especially useful for:

• Order updates
• Password changes
• Account activity
• Payment confirmations
• System alerts
• User reminders