Using Java8 with Maven in IntelliJ (invalid target release: 1.8)

I recently started trying out the early access version of Java8. When I tried using it with maven in IntelliJ however, I got the following error when I ran the maven install command:

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.1:compile (default-compile) on project xyz:

Fatal error compiling: invalid target release: 1.8\

Although I saw some suggestions on stackoverflow here about hardcoded JAVA_HOME paths, the solution was just changing the maven specific version of Java that IntelliJ uses. This can be done via: