How to Set Session Variable when User Login in Laravel

Of course the docs tell us how to store session data*, but they don't address the OP's question regarding storing session data at login. You have a couple options but I think the clearest way is to override the AuthenticatesUsers trait's authenticated method.

Add the override to your LoginController:

/**
 * The user has been authenticated.
 *
 * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
 * @param  mixed  $user
 * @return mixed
 */
protected function authenticated(Request $request, $user)
{
    $this->setUserSession($user);
}

Then you can set your session up as:

protected function setUserSession($user)
{
    session(
        [
            'last_invoiced_at' => $user->settings->last_invoiced_at,
            'total_amount_due' => $user->settings->total_amount_due
        ]
    );
}

If you want to be a bit more clever you can create a listener for the Login or Authenticated events and set up the session when one of those events* fires.

Create a listener such as SetUpUserSession:

<?php

namespace app\Listeners;

use Illuminate\Auth\Events\Login;

class SetUserSession
{
    /**
     * @param  Login $event
     * @return void
     */
    public function handle(Login $event)
    {
        session(
            [
                'last_invoiced_at' => $event->user->settings->last_invoiced_at, 
                'total_amount_due' => $event->user->settings->total_amount_due
            ]
        );
    }
}

*Links go to 5.4 but this hasn't changed from 5.3.

Laravel fires an event when a new login is made to the application. When an event fires you may add a listener for it, then add a session . This is the content of a listener I made.

<?php

namespace App\Listeners\Auth;

 use Illuminate\Auth\Events\Login;
 use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Queue\InteractsWithQueue;

class UserLoggedIn
{
    /**
     * Create the event listener.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        //
    }


    public function handle(Login $event)
    {

        if ($event->user->hasRole('subsidiary_admin')) {



            \Session::put('subsidiary_admin', $event->user->subsidiaryBoUser->subsidiary_id);
            \Session::put('subsidiary', $event->user->subsidiaryBoUser->subsidiary);



        }






    }
}

and I register it on the eventServiceProvider like this

 'Illuminate\Auth\Events\Login' => [
            'App\Listeners\Auth\UserLoggedIn',
        ],

I've used the Auth class to manage user data, like this:

public function index(){   
  $user_id = Auth::user()->id;  
}

But you have to add 'use Auth;' before class declaration. Then you can add any data to session variable.

You can store data in the session using two different methods either a Request instance or using the global helper/function provided.

Request Instance

public function methodA(Request $request) {
    $request->session()->put('KEY', 'VALUE');
}

Global Helper

public function methodB() {
    session(['key' => 'value']);
}

You can find more details on both methods in the documentation.

Here's what I am doing:

I have this on my helper file:

\App\Helpers\helpers.php:

function signedUser()
{
  return [
    'id'           => Auth::id(),
    'group_id'     => Auth::user()->group_id,
    'group_name'   => Auth::user()->group->name,
    'avatar'       => Auth::user()->avatar,
    'first_name'   => Auth::user()->first_name,
    'full_name'    => Auth::user()->full_name,
  ];
}

On my User Model:

public function group()
{
  return $this->belongsTo('App\Models\Group');
}

public function getFullNameAttribute()
{
   $full_name = ucfirst($this->first_name) . ' ' . ucfirst($this->middle_name[0]) . '. ' . ucfirst($this->last_name);

   return $full_name;
}

Then I can accessed the variables on both controllers and blade files like so:

dump(signedUser()['full_name']);

{{ signedUser()['full_name'] }}