A system and method that selects applications that are allowed to be performed by a particular user using a particular workstation is provided. The system identifies one or more roles that have been assigned to the user and matches the identified roles with one or more roles that have been assigned to the workstation. Roles that are allowed for both the workstation and the user are enabled to be used by the user using the workstation. In one embodiment, a user may be allowed to perform multiple roles from the user's workstation. The available roles are selected using an interface, such as a pop-up menu. In one embodiment, the desktop packages and components are received by, displayed on, and launched from a operating system platform-neutral shell application, such as a Java software application running on a Java virtual machine. In this manner, the packages and components are platform-independent.