Putting order by inside with(), in Laravel - php

Question

I have a controller that filters the columns in it's table based on the variable received in the get query, then it returns it with another table's value based on the id of the variable gotten, But now for the $filter_by_name condition I want to filter by the first_name column in the users table, please how can i do that, i.e I want to return the users table ordered by their first_name column
DB-STRUCTURE
COMPANY-USERS TABLE
id company_id user_id role created modified active department_level
USERS TABLE
id
first_name
last_name
email
password
active_company
profile_photo_id
verified
active
remember_token
created
modified
Company-users Controller
public function getCompanyUsers($companyId)
{
$filter = strtolower(Input::get('filter'));
if($filter && $filter === 'on' ){
$filter_by_date = strtolower(Input::get('filter_by_date'));
$filter_by_name = strtolower(Input::get('filter_by_name'));
$filter_by_role = strtolower(Input::get('filter_by_role'));
if($filter_by_date){
if($filter_by_date == 'oldest'){
$users = CompanyUser::where('company_id', $companyId)->orderBy('created', 'DESC')
->with(['user','user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])->get();
return $users;
}else{
$users = CompanyUser::where('company_id', $companyId)->orderBy('created', 'ASC')
->with(['user','user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])->get();
return $users;
}
}elseif ($filter_by_name){
if($filter_by_name == 'ascending'){
$users = CompanyUser::where('company_id', $companyId)->orderBy('first_name', 'ASC')
->with(['user','user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])->get();
return $users;
}else{
$users = CompanyUser::where('company_id', $companyId)->orderBy('first_name', 'DESC')
->with(['user','user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])->get();
return $users;
}
}elseif($filter_by_role){
if($filter_by_role == 'member'){
$users = CompanyUser::where(['company_id' => $companyId,'role'=>'Member'])->with(['user','user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])->get();
// dd($users);
return $users;
}elseif($filter_by_role == 'manager'){
$users = CompanyUser::where(['company_id' => $companyId,'role'=>'Manager'])->with(['user','user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])->get();
return $users;
}else
$users = CompanyUser::where(['company_id' => $companyId,'role'=>'Admin'])->with(['user','user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])->get();
return $users;
}
}
$users = CompanyUser::where('company_id', $companyId)->
with(['user','user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])->get();
//dd($users);
return $users;
}

Answer 1

you can pass closer functions when eager loading to add constrains like that, see more on laravel docs:
$users = CompanyUser::with(['user'=> function ($query) {
$query->orderBy('first_name', 'desc');
}
])
->where('company_id', $companyId)
->get();

Answer 2

You have to do orderBy on a relational model like below:
$users = CompanyUser::where('company_id', $companyId)
->with(['user' => function($subQuery){
$subQuery->orderBy('first_name', 'ASC');
}])
->with(['user.userDepartments','user.userDepartments.department'])
->get();
return $users;

Answer 3

One way is to add column 'first_name' in the 'COMPANY-USERS' TABLE
And now you can do order by ('first_name','ASC').
I think its not the best way but no other idea comes in my head.