Reporting
Most desktop management systems support reporting to let you know what’s going on. How well they support it and what kinds of reports they provide can differ widely. At the low end, some of the shareware or freeware products only provide a way to export statistical data to a spreadsheet such as Excel, leaving you to set up the reports you want in the spreadsheet software. At the other end of the spectrum, software like Altris provides a whole series of preset reports, the ability to create your own reports, and even a dashboard feature that lets you graphically monitor metrics such as update status.