Building Internal Tools and Dashboards with Laravel

Many of Redberry’s clients come to us needing robust internal applications - CRMs, ERPs, analytics dashboards, and client portals - that quietly power their day-to-day operations. These tools rarely make headlines, but they drive efficiency and decision-making at scale. Laravel is an ideal foundation for building such systems. Its developer-first design, expressive syntax, and thriving ecosystem of admin packages allow us to ship powerful internal platforms with confidence and speed. As one of our developers put it: “Whether it’s a powerful CRM for your team or an interactive portal for your customers, chances are we’ve built something similar before.” In this post, we’ll walk through best practices and real-world approaches for building internal web apps with Laravel - from admin UI setup and access control to real-time updates, reporting, and architectural choices.

When to Use Admin Packages

One of Laravel’s biggest advantages for internal tools is its rich ecosystem of admin panel packages. Two of the most widely used are Filament and Laravel Nova. At Redberry, we reach for Filament in most cases because it helps us build powerful, user-friendly admin panels at a rapid pace.

Filament offers a ready-to-use scaffolding system for common CRUD operations, customizable forms and tables, relation managers, and out-of-the-box features like filters, modals, and user impersonation. For example, when we needed to build a client management dashboard with tasks, notes, and pipelines, Filament allowed us to ship the core admin views in just a few days. This meant we could spend more time customizing views and flows that were unique to the client, like a Kanban-style lead tracker, while still leaning on Laravel conventions underneath.

Choosing between Filament and other admin tools often comes down to flexibility and developer ergonomics. With Filament, we can move fast without sacrificing customization. It integrates seamlessly into existing Laravel apps, which makes it easy to incrementally adopt or extend.

Data Modeling and Access Control

Internal tools typically reflect a business’s internal logic - its customers, orders, transactions, inventory, or HR records. That means the database schema and Eloquent relationships are foundational to the tool’s structure.

We always start by defining clear data models and their relationships: for example, a one-to-many relationship between Customer and Order, or a many-to-many between Employee and Project. From there, we add role-based access control. Laravel offers basic authorization via policies and gates, but for complex permissions, we often use the Spatie Laravel-Permission package. This lets us assign roles (e.g., Admin, Manager, Staff) and sync fine-grained permissions to each role (e.g., view orders, edit client notes, delete users).

Access control isn’t just about compliance - it also keeps interfaces clean. A sales manager doesn’t need to see settings meant for IT. When properly scoped, each user experiences an interface tailored to their role, improving usability and reducing errors.

Real-Time Dashboards

Live data and real-time feedback loops are often essential for keeping internal teams informed and responsive. Whether it’s a support dashboard showing new tickets, a sales board logging new leads, or a warehouse system reflecting inventory changes, timely data delivery enhances decision-making and team coordination.

Laravel makes this possible through its event broadcasting capabilities, powered by Laravel Echo. When data changes - say, a new order is placed or a ticket is resolved - we trigger events from our backend, which are picked up by Echo on the frontend. This enables seamless, instant updates across charts, counters, and lists.

At Redberry, we typically configure this setup using Redis as the queue driver and Pusher as the broadcasting service. For example, in a recent CRM tool, we broadcasted NewLeadCreated and LeadStatusUpdated events. The sales dashboard reflected these changes instantly without a page reload, giving managers a live view of team performance.

Notifications are another crucial layer. Laravel’s built-in Notification system allows us to alert users across different channels: email, Slack, or in-app. In one internal app, we alerted warehouse managers when inventory dropped below a threshold. These alerts were not only sent in real time, but also persisted to the database for visibility and follow-up.

By combining database-driven logic with event broadcasting and alerting systems, our Laravel-powered internal tools feel dynamic and responsive. Teams don’t have to refresh pages or rely on manual syncs - they just see the data as it happens.

API-Driven vs. Server-Rendered UIs

When architecting dashboards and admin tools, choosing the right frontend approach is crucial. Laravel offers several options:

• Blade: Laravel’s traditional templating engine, suitable for straightforward server-rendered pages.
• Livewire: A powerful way to build interactive components with minimal JavaScript, still server-driven.
• Inertia.js + Vue/React: Bridges the gap between SPAs and Laravel by letting you build modern frontends using a Laravel backend.
• API + SPA: For fully decoupled frontends using Vue, React, or another framework consuming a Laravel API.

We choose based on project needs. If the dashboard has heavy interactivity (drag-and-drop, real-time updates, advanced filtering), we often pair Laravel with Inertia + Vue or React. If the interactivity is incremental and simpler (e.g., form validation, inline editing), we prefer Livewire to keep the tech stack minimal.

For instance, in a healthcare reporting tool, we used Livewire for CRUD operations and Vue for real-time charting. This hybrid approach helped us avoid unnecessary complexity while still offering a snappy user experience.

Search and Reporting

Internal tools often manage large datasets, which means fast search and robust reporting are essential.

For search, we integrate Laravel Scout with Meilisearch or Algolia to provide full-text, typo-tolerant, and filterable results. It makes finding a customer, project, or invoice blazingly fast.

Reporting needs vary, but common formats include downloadable PDFs and Excel files. Laravel Excel lets us generate multi-sheet reports, apply formatting, and support large exports efficiently. For visual dashboards, we integrate Vue-based charting libraries, often passing in dynamic data via props from Livewire or Inertia components.

We also consider user permissions when generating reports - ensuring that staff only see data scoped to their role, region, or department.

Example Case: A Healthcare Reporting Dashboard

One of our recent internal platforms was a healthcare analytics dashboard for clinic administrators. The platform required complex user management, role-based permissions, and live tracking of patient activity.

We used Filament to quickly scaffold out CRUD operations for users, appointments, and procedures. Then we integrated Laravel Echo for broadcasting new appointment bookings and cancellations. Vue components rendered real-time charts showing daily check-ins, wait times, and patient flows. Finally, we generated downloadable reports for compliance audits using Laravel Excel.

This modular setup allowed the clinic team to monitor activity in real time while also exporting structured reports for monthly analysis. The entire dashboard was delivered in weeks, thanks to Laravel’s ecosystem and our reusable internal patterns.

Final Thoughts

Laravel’s elegance and ecosystem make it an exceptional choice for building internal tools. From rapid admin panel scaffolding with Filament to robust access control, real-time broadcasting, and flexible UI architectures, Laravel allows teams to move fast without cutting corners.

At Redberry, we’ve built CRMs, client portals, reporting tools, and more - each tailored to a business’s exact workflows. Our role as Official Laravel Partners and Official Vue Partners means we’re deeply familiar with both back-end and front-end best practices. And as long-time sponsors of Filament, we know how to make the most of the ecosystem to deliver dashboards that are both beautiful and functional.

If you're planning to build an internal tool or dashboard, reach out to our team, we’d love to help you bring it to life.