An industrial workflow tracking and identification system captures optimal employee workflows for addressing maintenance issues or operating industrial systems, and renders these workflows at appropriate times in order to guide operators and maintenance personnel through optimal sequences for carrying out operations or addressing maintenance issues. The system monitors and indexes both plant-wide system data as well as employee behaviors, and identifies correlations between operational outcomes and user workflows. In this way, the system tracks and captures optimal employee workflows for addressing particular maintenance issues, performing certain procedures, or achieving preferred production outcomes. By identifying and recording correlations between observed employee behaviors and production outcomes, the system creates a library of best practices that can be used as a training tool, as well as to provide substantially real-time guidance to maintenance staff and operators in connection with solving a problem or performing a task.