1. A method for information lifecyle management (ILM), the method comprising the steps of: receiving, by a process running on a computer system, a user-definition of ILM actions, data state transitions, and associations among the respective data state transitions and ILM actions and responsively storing a data structure representing the received data state transitions, ILM actions, and correspondence among the respective data state transitions and ILM actions; detecting, by a process for an ILM model running on the computer system, a workflow definition event in a monitored process running on a computer system; and storing an information lifcycle flow data structure for the workflow definition responsive to the workflow definition in the monitored process having a data state transition matching one of the user-defined data state transitions, wherein the information lifcycle flow data structure models the matching data state transition, so that the ILM action corresponding to the matching data state transition may be performed for the data responsive to occurrence of a workflow process event in which the matching data state transition occurs.