Laravel - How to pass variables from view to controller with form - php

Question

I'm building a request system with Laravel 7. In the index page, there is a form for user to fill in and a submit button. If the button is clicked, the data in the form will be sent to the supervisor via email. The email which the supervisor receives, all user input data will be listed along with a "Approve" button and a "Reject" button. If the "Approve" button is clicked, the user input data will be stored in the database. All user input data is stored in $data and can be accessed in email template view. So, in the email template, how do I pass the user input data and Auth::user()->id to the controller so that the storing process will start?
I read this post and it looks useful to me, but it is using <a> to do the redirection to trigger the controller. Is it possible to pass the blade variables from the <form> in the email template view to the controller, so that I can use <button>?
Update:
index.blade.php:
<form action="/sendSupervisor" method="post">
<input type="text">
<input type="text">
<button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>
web.php:
Route::post('/sendSupervisor', 'CatViewController#sendSupervisor')->middleware('auth')->middleware('verified');
CatViewController.php:
// one of the methods
public function sendSupervisor()
{
$data = request();
Mail::to('supervisor#abc.com')->send(new ApprovalMail($data));
return redirect('/');
}
approval.blade.php:
<!-- Email Template -->
User Input: {{ $data->name }}
<form action="/approve">
<button>Approve</button>
</form>
<form action="/reject">
<button>Reject</button>
</form>

Answer 1

An email is not a browser, and in almost every case a <form> tag will have no effect. You cannot retrieve user input from an email, however in your case if you have two buttons in the email, and that email is being sent to a user that exists in your system, AND the input you are receiving is 'accept' or 'reject' based on which button they click, this is doable.
You can have two routes that are publicly accessible and build two "buttons" with hrefs that will carry out those actions. Like:
Route::get('email/accept/{user_id}', 'EmailController#accept');
Route::get('email/reject/{user_id}', 'EmailController#reject');
Then link to those routes in your email temple like:
Accept
Reject
Then in that controller, you can resolve the user based on id in those methods, and you can carry out any logic you would like.
A note of caution: since these links need to be publicly accessible, using id's is not ideal. You should generate some sort of token to resolve the user.

Answer 2

A better approach:
It's better to save the user request once he post it with a column flag called "status" that holds either ("Pending", "Approved", "Rejected"), and then send an email to the supervisor
index.blade
<form action="/sendRequest" method="post">
<input type="text">
<input type="text">
<button type="submit">Send</button>
</form>
web.php
Route::get('/sendRequest', 'MyController#sendRequest)
MyController.php
public function sendRequest(Request $request){
// UserRequest table should has column 'status' with default value 'Pending'
$userRequest = UserRequest::create($request->all());
Mail::to('supervisor#abc.com')->send(new ApprovalMail($userRequest));
return redirect('/');
}
The email template should only notify the supervisor to take an action with the request, with a button 'Take action' that opens a page in the browser for him to take the action.
email-template.blade
<!-- User data displayed for example in a table -->
<a href={{ route('takeAction', $userRequest->id) }}>
<button> Take Action <button>
</a>
web.php
Route::get('/take-action/{requestId}', 'SupervisorController#takeAction')
->name('taleAction');
SupervisorController.php
public function takeAction($requestId){
$userRequest = UserRequest::find($requestId);
return view('take-action', [$userRequest]);
}
take-action.blade
<-- User data displayed for example in a table -->
<form method='POST' action={{ route('takeActionPost', $userRequest->id) }}>
#csrf
<input type='hidden' name='action' value='Approved'>
<button type='submit'>Approve</button>
</form>
<form method='POST' action={{ route('takeActionPost', $userRequest->id) }}>
#csrf
<input type='hidden' name='action' value='Rejected'>
<button type='submit'>Rejected</button>
</form>
web.php
Route::post('/take-action/{requestId}', 'SupervisorController#takeActionPost')
->name('takaActionPost');
SupervisorController.php
public function takeActionPost(Request $request, $requestId){
$userRequest = UserRequest::find($requestId);
$userRequest->update(['status', $request->action]);
}
Of course the names I'm using here are very bad, I just want to explain my idea

Answer 3

Add hidden input fields in the form whose values are the user data. But I think there is a better design for your system that I'll explain in a separate answer.