For information lifecyle management (ILM) a process receives a user-definition of ILM actions, data state transitions, and associations among the respective data state transitions and ILM actions and responsively stores a data structure representing the received data state transitions, ILM actions, and correspondence among the respective data state transitions and ILM actions. A process for an ILM model detects a workflow definition event in a monitored process running on a computer system. An information lifecycle flow data structure for the workflow definition is stored 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 lifecycle 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.