Licence Key questions

[DiscoStu71]

I just purchased (and received) my 180 day Licence Key for CF Professional: my question(s) are:

• Does the 'time start ticking' when you receive the key through email, or once you enter the key into CF?
  
• When you enter the key and the full CF 'opens up', when your key expires, do the settings remain the same (for example: troop deployment speed) or do they auto-restore to defaults?  
  

My thought process is this:  I am currently TH9 with 6 days remaining for the TH10 upgrade.  I will be away on 2 weeks holiday in 7 days, and hope to set CF to simply upgrade my L10 walls to L11 while I am away.  I will have my CC and lab upgrading as well, so when I return, my CC will be upgraded to L6 and my lab to L8.   Rather than simply fill my Gold & Elixir reserves, I can 'autoupgrade' my walls to strengthen my base... I do not want to install the key until the night before my vacation starts but don't want to lose any days if the key starts when it is emailed to you.

Thanks for the great bot CF team!