8. A method comprising: receiving a print job that defines multiple documents; directing devices of a print shop in accordance with a print workflow that comprises an ordered set of activities to perform upon the documents, wherein each activity has a queued state, a processing state, and a complete state, identifying properties of each of the documents to track while the print job is being processed in the workflow; receiving progress information from the devices; analyzing the progress information to detect a triggering event indicating that a documents in the workflow has transitioned to a new state at an activity, analyzing recording criteria for the document to determine whether to update a history for the document in response to the triggering event; and when the criteria indicate an update to the history, adding an entry to a history file for the document while the document is in the workflow, wherein the entry indicates values of the properties of the document during the triggering event, and a current workflow activity for the document during the triggering event.
8. A method comprising: receiving a print job that defines multiple documents; directing devices of a print shop in accordance with a print workflow that comprises an ordered set of activities to perform upon the documents, wherein each activity has a queued state, a processing state, and a complete state, identifying properties of each of the documents to track while the print job is being processed in the workflow; receiving progress information from the devices; analyzing the progress information to detect a triggering event indicating that a documents in the workflow has transitioned to a new state at an activity, analyzing recording criteria for the document to determine whether to update a history for the document in response to the triggering event; and when the criteria indicate an update to the history, adding an entry to a history file for the document while the document is in the workflow, wherein the entry indicates values of the properties of the document during the triggering event, and a current workflow activity for the document during the triggering event. 12. The method of claim 8 further comprising: continuously monitoring the properties for each of the documents.