SQL Views that returns last transaction dates - sql-server

Question

Please find all the necessary scripts at the bottom of this post to create the scenario I'm describing here.
Scenario:
I have a "Transactions" table where I store all transactions in a stock market management app. ALL transactions are in there with the pertinent info e.g. TransactionType, TransactionAmount, etc.
The next two tables are super simple and self explanatory i.e. People and Companies.
I then have a table called TransactionsForCompanies where I store all transactions created by corporate customers. In this table, I have only two columns: TransactionId -- coming from the Transactions table -- CompanyId -- coming from the Companies table.
The next table called TransactionsForPeople is almost identical the last one but it's used for identifying transactions created by individuals.
Please see the DB structure and I think it'll make sense fairly easily.
Here's what I'm trying to do and where I need help.
I want to create a view that gives me the "Last Transaction Date" for people. So if a person had multiple transactions in the last month, this view is supposed to give me the last transaction date for that individual who might have had the transaction only 2 hours ago. Of course, the view will return last transaction date for ALL "individual customers".
To do this, I used the MAX function and the view worked nicely. However, because I'm using the MAX function, I cannot create an index for the view. As a result, I have a performance issue because my "Transactions" table has millions of records.
Of course the idea is to use the view in another SELECT statement so that I can generate nice reports about most and least active clients. This SELECT statement runs very slowly and when I look at the execution plan, the bottleneck is where I have my JOIN to the view that is using the MAX function.
QUESTION: How do I capture the last TransactionDate for people who had transactions in a way that gives me good performance?
Thanks...
USE [TestDb]
GO
/****** Object: Table [dbo].[Companies] Script Date: 4/7/2013 1:48:18 PM ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Companies](
[CompanyId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[CompanyName] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_Companies] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[CompanyId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
/****** Object: Table [dbo].[People] Script Date: 4/7/2013 1:48:18 PM ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[People](
[PersonId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[FirstName] [nvarchar](20) NOT NULL,
[MiddleName] [nvarchar](20) NULL,
[LastName] [nvarchar](20) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_People] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[PersonId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
/****** Object: Table [dbo].[Transactions] Script Date: 4/7/2013 1:48:18 PM ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Transactions](
[TransactionId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[TransactionType] [nvarchar](50) NOT NULL,
[TransactionTimeStamp] [datetime] NOT NULL,
[TransactionAmount] [money] NOT NULL,
[Comments] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_Transactions] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[TransactionId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
/****** Object: Table [dbo].[TransactionsForCompanies] Script Date: 4/7/2013 1:48:18 PM ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForCompanies](
[TransactionId] [int] NOT NULL,
[CompanyId] [int] NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_TransactionsForCompanies] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[TransactionId] ASC,
[CompanyId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
/****** Object: Table [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople] Script Date: 4/7/2013 1:48:18 PM ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople](
[TransactionId] [int] NOT NULL,
[PersonId] [int] NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_TransactionsForPeople] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[TransactionId] ASC,
[PersonId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[Companies] ON
GO
INSERT [dbo].[Companies] ([CompanyId], [CompanyName]) VALUES (1, N'Company A')
GO
INSERT [dbo].[Companies] ([CompanyId], [CompanyName]) VALUES (2, N'Company B')
GO
INSERT [dbo].[Companies] ([CompanyId], [CompanyName]) VALUES (3, N'Company C')
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[Companies] OFF
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[People] ON
GO
INSERT [dbo].[People] ([PersonId], [FirstName], [MiddleName], [LastName]) VALUES (1, N'John', NULL, N'Doe')
GO
INSERT [dbo].[People] ([PersonId], [FirstName], [MiddleName], [LastName]) VALUES (2, N'Jane', NULL, N'Smith')
GO
INSERT [dbo].[People] ([PersonId], [FirstName], [MiddleName], [LastName]) VALUES (3, N'Betsy', NULL, N'Green')
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[People] OFF
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[Transactions] ON
GO
INSERT [dbo].[Transactions] ([TransactionId], [TransactionType], [TransactionTimeStamp], [TransactionAmount], [Comments]) VALUES (1, N'BUY', CAST(0x0000A1990122F5C4 AS DateTime), 300.0000, N'Got it!')
GO
INSERT [dbo].[Transactions] ([TransactionId], [TransactionType], [TransactionTimeStamp], [TransactionAmount], [Comments]) VALUES (2, N'BID', CAST(0x0000A19901236069 AS DateTime), 1753.5000, N'My best offer...')
GO
INSERT [dbo].[Transactions] ([TransactionId], [TransactionType], [TransactionTimeStamp], [TransactionAmount], [Comments]) VALUES (3, N'SELL', CAST(0x0000A19901236AF5 AS DateTime), 1753.5000, N'Will take it!')
GO
INSERT [dbo].[Transactions] ([TransactionId], [TransactionType], [TransactionTimeStamp], [TransactionAmount], [Comments]) VALUES (4, N'BUY', CAST(0x0000A19901236C21 AS DateTime), 1753.5000, N'Finalize purchase.')
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[Transactions] OFF
GO
INSERT [dbo].[TransactionsForCompanies] ([TransactionId], [CompanyId]) VALUES (3, 1)
GO
INSERT [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople] ([TransactionId], [PersonId]) VALUES (1, 2)
GO
INSERT [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople] ([TransactionId], [PersonId]) VALUES (2, 3)
GO
INSERT [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople] ([TransactionId], [PersonId]) VALUES (4, 3)
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Transactions] ADD CONSTRAINT [DF_Transactions_TransactionTimeStamp] DEFAULT (getutcdate()) FOR [TransactionTimeStamp]
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForCompanies] WITH CHECK ADD CONSTRAINT [FK_TransactionsForCompanies_Companies] FOREIGN KEY([CompanyId])
REFERENCES [dbo].[Companies] ([CompanyId])
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForCompanies] CHECK CONSTRAINT [FK_TransactionsForCompanies_Companies]
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForCompanies] WITH CHECK ADD CONSTRAINT [FK_TransactionsForCompanies_Transactions] FOREIGN KEY([TransactionId])
REFERENCES [dbo].[Transactions] ([TransactionId])
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForCompanies] CHECK CONSTRAINT [FK_TransactionsForCompanies_Transactions]
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople] WITH CHECK ADD CONSTRAINT [FK_TransactionsForPeople_People] FOREIGN KEY([PersonId])
REFERENCES [dbo].[People] ([PersonId])
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople] CHECK CONSTRAINT [FK_TransactionsForPeople_People]
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople] WITH CHECK ADD CONSTRAINT [FK_TransactionsForPeople_Transactions] FOREIGN KEY([TransactionId])
REFERENCES [dbo].[Transactions] ([TransactionId])
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[TransactionsForPeople] CHECK CONSTRAINT [FK_TransactionsForPeople_Transactions]
GO

Answer 1

Your not going to be able to create an indexed view if you want to use max(), as you have said.
How about either:
(i) Changing the primary key to be nonclustered, and then adding a clustered index on TransactionTimestamp for the Transactions table?
(ii) Adding an index on TransactionId, TransactionTimestamp on the Transactions table.