Agent Reporting Monitor

Is there a way to monitor a specific agent to ensure that they are reporting and picking up any tasks that are needed? More specific the Patch Management portion. An Altiris agent can send its basic inventory but that doesn't mean that the Patching portion is working. I have machines spread throughout multiple states some RLAN, some slow frame and I have run into a few Altiris Agents that were sending back their inventory but lacked information that they were completely patched. Any help would be greatly appreciated.