Change Request Management in Sharepoint

Question

Hi - I've read through pages and pages of online content on ticketing/support systems etc. and somehow still can't seem to find something that best
matches what I want to achieve - So hoping someone can help...
I work in an IT Development office, and we currently have a very poor process in place for when clients submit change requests for our products
(systems). This comprises of client fills out excel form and sends to mailbox (and most of the time, 10 other recipients not needing to be CC), we pick up email and manually copy to list on Sharepoint, we review request and update excel doc on sharepoint,
then email user to check sharepoint for updates. Alongside this, any additional requests for info, etc. are all done by phone/email amongst various members of the development team, and also any comments we make about the request (which should only be visible
to us) are held on a separate list. Finally, we have an issue that all of the costing information is put into a tab in the excel document, which in theory can be opened by anyone who visits the list on sharepoint.
The process I WANT to have in place is as follows:
Client can login to Sharepoint and see options to either review open requests (only seeing request ID/Name and status) or submit a new request
Client fills out form online to submit new request, upon submission 3 things happen:
A) Client receives auto email thanking for request and advising of lead times for response, ideally with a pdf or similar copy
of their submission
B) IT Team receive an email stating there is a new request submission, ideally with a pdf copy of the request
C) Request goes into a list on Sharepoint, and then appears in two areas, one where the clients can see the request name and status only, and a second where the development team can see all of the information,
and make internal comments on the record which are invisible to the client. Finally, the client should ideally be able to click through on the status list to see the full request and our response/costings etc. However only the requester should be able
to see this much information about their request
IT Team review request, update status and provide feedback inc. costings where appropriate. Each time the status is changed on the request, it should email
the requester to advise the record has been updated/moved forward
So far the best I can do is customise a form in Infopath to show how I want to layout the client submission form, and get that to go straight into a list. The list being visible to any user on our global Sharepoint site, including them being able to click
through and see any of the information listed.
I'm relatively new to Sharepoint, and although I've achieved quite a lot in the short time I've been working with it, I just cannot seem to get my head around how to best do this. So some help would be really appreciated!

Answer 1

Hi - I've tried downloading SPD2010 on another pc, and attempted to use this to create a new workflow where I could use the Copy List Item function. However everytime I go through the process of trying to add a new workflow to my list, it lets me type in
a title and description, press OK, and it tells me to wait a moment, then the box disappears and I'm left on the same screen I started on with no new workflow added? I've tried this over and over this evening with no joy...
On your other option to create a new list item and populate using other fields, A. will this mean I have to write the copy for every field in my list? (I have about 40-50 fields, and I have to create 5 of these workflows in order to move my process through
the way I need it to), and B. surely if I delete the list item after telling it to pull from the other list, wont my data then disappear also considering it's pulling from there?
Thanks.