If you have a Maven project, IntelliJ will open it and configure itself automatically. The IDE user doesn't need to know anything about Maven build configurations. It just works.
The Maven Project IS the configuration. Intellij is only a shortcut. It let's you access configurations via click rather than via a command line expression.
In the end if you want to create a Maven Project configuration or edit the configuration it's on you to do it. At most intellij will just generate boilerplate for you.
For example in CLion you can't create a new target from the IDE, you have to edit the cmake file.
> In order to even get the IDE working with a project you need to configure it to work.
Meaning you already have a Maven/SBT/Gradle project and need to get the IDE to work with it.
Why else would I come on here to make some claim that is false?