1. A method for detecting activities involving use of a software application, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: establishing a set of rules associating business signatures with business activities, in which each rule comprises an association of one of the business signatures with one of the business activities; wherein said business activities are each an activity that involves one or more interactions between the application and application users; wherein the set of rules comprises a rule associating an activity with a signature; monitoring information that is generated based on at least one user's use of the application; comparing the information against at least a portion of at least some of the business signatures to determine which of the business activities have been initiated; based on the comparing, determining that the activity has been initiated; wherein determining that the activity has been initiated comprises identifying, in said information, a first signature that matches said signature; wherein identifying the first signature comprises determining that a first set of one or more name-value pairs in a first stream of characters in said information matches the signature; wherein the signature is a template for the first signature, said template comprising at least one non-literal parameter value capable of matching multiple different values; and in response to determining that the activity has been initiated, triggering execution of an action or policy associated with the activity; wherein the method is performed by one or more processors of a computer system.