The invention is a computer-implemented workflow application comprising one or more workflow components, each workflow component comprising an object having a metadata property; a workflow program comprising workflow components connected together to execute an operational workflow; a class loader program operable to introspect the objects and extract the metadata properties when each workflow component of the workflow program is executed, and store the metadata properties in a memory; and a workflow manager program operable to analyze the metadata stored in the memory and provide requested status information.