Once a problem report or work request has been submitted electronically, there are a few steps that can happen before the work is done.
Nobody likes record keeping, but it's necessary for several reasons. Once a work request arrives, the Client Support Supervisor (Lori Suess, extension MFCF (6323)) reviews the request, determining any missing information, consulting with the requester as needed. One of the prevalent examples is the name of the machine to be fixed, so that its support status can be determined. This became necessary once the possibility of not paying for computing support was allowed.
If the request can be resolved by application of the FAQ, and/or by the on-duty consultants (in MC3017, extension 6509), it is resolved. If not, the Supervisor assigns the work to the most appropriate person, taking into account both the nature and urgency of the work.
Work is generally done on a first-in first-out basis, for any given urgency. Work requests appear on the overall queue in a position influenced by the Urgency specified when the request was submitted. When work begins on a request, it is moved up in the list into the "Current Projects" section. That doesn't always happen for really short requests though.
The person who will do the needed work (the owner of the work request) will add notes to the appropriate work record. When there are questions or points of interest, the request owner will e-mail these to the requesters (there's a handy button in the ST update request form to do this).
Sadly, far more work is requested than can be possibly done. If it's obvious from the beginning that a work request isn't practical given available resources, the requester is informed. But sometimes that's not obvious until enough time has passed. The current guideline is that after 8 weeks have passed without significant progress, requests will become current projects at least long enough to either complete them if they're short, or reassess the priority of the work with the requester, possibly agreeing that the work: