Laravel Eager Load Constraint issue - php

Question

Edit: For clarity, this is Laravel 5.8.
This is for a HR app I'm working on.
They requested a report to show people who have punched in late. Sure, no problem I thought.
So I have a form with some custom parameters the user can punch in, start_date, end_date, wage, and an array of departments.
public function show()
{
request()->validate([
'start_date' => 'required|date|before_or_equal:today'
]);
$start = Carbon::parse(request('start_date'));
$end = request('end_date') ? Carbon::parse(request('end_date')) : today();
$wage = request('wage');
$departments = request('departments');
$query = EmployeePunch::with([
'employee' => function($query) use ($wage, $departments) {
// IF I UN COMMENT THESE, IN THE FILTER BLOCK BELOW, THE EMPLOYEE BECOMES UNDEFINED.
// if($wage != null) {
// $query->where('hourly', $wage);
// }
// if($departments) {
// $query->whereIn('department_id', $departments);
// }
},
'employee.group',
'employee.department'
])
->whereBetween('punch_time', [$start->startOfDay(), $end->endOfDay()])
// only care about punch in for the day
->where('type', 1);
$results = $query->get();
$latePunches = $results->filter(function ($i) {
$day = strtolower($i->punch_time->format('D'));
$startTime = Carbon::parse(sprintf('%s %s',
$i->punch_time->format('d-m-Y'),
$i->employee->group[$day.'_start_time'])
);
return $i->punch_time->isAfter($startTime)
&& $i->punch_time->diffInMinutes($startTime) >= 5;
});
return view('hr.employeeLateReport.show', compact('latePunches'));
}
So, my problem is in my eager loading and I can't figure this out. If I uncomment the filters in the eager loading of employees, in the filter block near the end of the code block, the $i->employee becomes undefined. If omit the filters, everything works peachy. I've checked the queries being produced and it all looks great.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Here's the relationship methods
Employee.php
public function punches()
{
return $this->hasMany(EmployeePunch::class);
}
public function group()
{
return $this->belongsTo(Group::class);
}
public function department()
{
return $this->belongsTo(Department::class)->withDefault();
}
EmployeePunch.php
public function employee()
{
return $this->belongsTo(Employee::class);
}
SQL Output

Answer 1

Try and use whereHas and nest whereBetween:
$query = EmployeePunch::with([
'employee' => function($query) use ($wage, $departments) {
if($wage != null) {
$query->where('hourly', $wage);
}
if($departments) {
$query->whereIn('department_id', $departments);
}
},
'employee.group',
'employee.department'
])->whereHas('employee', function($q) use($start, $end) {
$q->whereBetween('punch_time', [$start->startOfDay(), $end->endOfDay()]);
})->where('type', 1);