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Talemul Islam
Talemul Islam

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🧠 Automatically Track created_by and updated_by in All Models

#laravel #audittrail #saas #productivity

🎬 Background: Real Problem from a Real Project

A few days ago, a client from Upwork assigned me a task:
“I need to see who created or last updated specific tasks or orders in the system.”
So I dove into the Laravel project... and found that:
• No tables had created_by or updated_by columns.

• No model had logic to store the user ID on create/update.

• No Blade template had access to the creator or updater names.

That Raised Some Questions:

• Should I manually add these columns and save logic in every controller?

• Should I add listeners to each model manually?

• Should I create global logic in AppServiceProvider?

That’s when I stepped back and designed a better, reusable, scalable solution using traits and a helper script — saving me hours of tedious work.

🔍 What I'll Build

• Add created_by and updated_by columns via migration

• Automatically populate these fields using traits

• Make relationships accessible in Blade (e.g., $order->creator->name)

• Auto-attach the tracking trait to all models via a PHP script

🛠 Step 1: Add Audit Columns via Migration

Create the migration file:

php artisan make:migration add_audit_columns_by_to_all_tables
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Example content:

Schema::table('orders', function (Blueprint $table) { $table->unsignedBigInteger('created_by')->default(0); $table->unsignedBigInteger('updated_by')->default(0); });
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For multiple tables, use this:

private array $tables = [ 'customers', 'orders', 'order_details', ]; public function up(): void { foreach ($this->tables as $table) { if (!Schema::hasColumn($table, 'updated_by')) { Schema::table($table, function (Blueprint $tableBlueprint) { $tableBlueprint->unsignedBigInteger('updated_by')->default(0); }); } } foreach ($this->tables as $table) { if (!Schema::hasColumn($table, 'created_by')) { Schema::table($table, function (Blueprint $tableBlueprint) { $tableBlueprint->unsignedBigInteger('created_by')->default(0); }); } } } public function down(): void { foreach ($this->tables as $table) { if (Schema::hasColumn($table, 'updated_by')) { Schema::table($table, function (Blueprint $tableBlueprint) { $tableBlueprint->dropColumn('updated_by'); }); } } }
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Get your table names with:

SHOW TABLES;
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Then run:

php artisan migrate
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🧩 Step 2: Create the Traits

App\Traits\AuditTrailUpdater.php

<?php /** * Author: Talemul Islam * Website: https://talemul.com */ namespace App\Traits; use App\Models\User; use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Auth; use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema; use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Log; use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model; use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\BelongsTo; trait AuditTrailUpdater { public static function bootAuditTrailUpdater(): void { static::creating(function (Model $model) { try { if (Schema::hasColumn($model->getTable(), 'created_by')) { $model->created_by = Auth::id() ?? 0; } if (Schema::hasColumn($model->getTable(), 'updated_by')) { $model->updated_by = Auth::id() ?? 0; } } catch (\Exception $e) { Log::error('Error setting created_by for ' . get_class($model) . ': ' . $e->getMessage()); } }); static::updating(function (Model $model) { try { if (Schema::hasColumn($model->getTable(), 'updated_by')) { $model->updated_by = Auth::id() ?? 0; } } catch (\Exception $e) { Log::error('Error setting updated_by for ' . get_class($model) . ': ' . $e->getMessage()); } }); } public function updater(): BelongsTo { return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'updated_by'); } public function creator(): BelongsTo { return $this->belongsTo(User::class, 'created_by'); } }
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✅ Step 3: Use the Trait in Models 

use App\Traits\AuditTrailUpdater; class Order extends Model { use AuditTrailUpdater; }
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❓ Common Questions

Q: Will it break if a table doesn’t have the columns?

A: No, it checks with Schema::hasColumn() before setting the value.

Q: Will it handle both create and update?

A: Yes, creating and updating hooks are used.

But doing this for 50+ models manually? Painful. So…

⚙️ Step 4: Automate Trait Injection

add-audit-trail-updater.php:

<?php /** * Author: Talemul Islam * Website: https://talemul.com */ $directory = __DIR__ . '/app/Models'; function addTraitToModel($filePath) { $content = file_get_contents($filePath); if (strpos($content, 'use AuditTrailUpdater;') !== false) return; if (strpos($content, 'use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;') !== false) { $content = str_replace( 'use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;', "use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;\nuse App\\Traits\\AuditTrailUpdater;", $content ); } $content = preg_replace( '/class\s+\w+\s+extends\s+Model\s*{/', "$0\n use AuditTrailUpdater;", $content ); file_put_contents($filePath, $content); echo "Updated: $filePath\n"; } $rii = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($directory)); foreach ($rii as $file) { if ($file->isFile() && $file->getExtension() === 'php') { addTraitToModel($file->getPathname()); } }
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Run:

php add-audit-trail-updater.php
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🧾 In Blade 

{{ $order->updater->name ?? 'System' }}
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🚀 Wrap-Up

✅ Saves time on audit tracking

✅ Works for any number of models

✅ Clean, DRY, reusable

Top comments (2)

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dotallio profile image
Dotallio •

This kind of automation is a huge time-saver, especially when scaling up.
Did you run into any tricky edge cases while applying it across different models?

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talemul profile image
Talemul Islam •

Absolutely! Automating this saved me hours of repetitive work — especially with over 50+ models to update.

The main one was dealing with models that didn't have the created_by or updated_by columns, which could break mass operations. I handled that by wrapping the logic with Schema::hasColumn() checks to ensure safety.

Another subtle challenge was ensuring the trait's boot method didn’t conflict with other model events, but Laravel handles bootable traits nicely when structured properly.

Lastly, I had to sanitize the script to avoid injecting the trait multiple times if rerun — a simple string check (strpos) solved that.

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you've faced any similar issues or have suggestions for improvement.