I thought this would be an automated process.

not entirely. while steam does auto approve refunds for games that are both owned less than 14 days & played less than 2 hours, they have a refund department to vet & process refunds. they’ll send an email if what you’re refunding doesn’t fit the criteria for automatic approval:

Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any title that is requested within 14 days of purchase and has been played for less than 2 hours (this includes online, offline and shared library playtime). Even if you fall outside of the refund rules we’ve described, you can submit a request and we’ll take a look at it.